


Cat's in the Cradle

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: Hotel Artemis (2018)
Genre: AU, Angst, Bad People Making Bad Decisions, Drug Use, I don't know how many more ways I can tell you to not read this fic, M/M, Pre-Canon, Slow Burn, The Wolf King is not a good boyfriend, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, also Acapulco is going to sleep with both of them separately and that's pretty bad but look, and also not a good father, and morally grey people becoming increasingly worse over time, non-ethical kink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-05-20 22:33:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 33
Words: 92,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14903369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: The AU where Crosby Franklin comes home from college to find his dad is sleeping with some weird twink who can't be much older than he is. And then a lot of things happen.





	1. You Can Rely on the Old Man's Money

**Author's Note:**

> In which everyone is... a bad person. But in which everyone was once young and not as terrible as they would eventually become. And it's a combination of luck and the choices you make and the effects others have on you for good or for ill. But yeah. If you like a fluff AU, especially for niagapulco, this is not it.

1- Crosby

 

    “Dad, I’m home!” Crosby calls. The front door is just open, which he hopes means that he was expected. He’d think a crime lord would throw the deadbolt if he wasn’t expecting a son home from college. And that would make it okay that he’d had to make his own way up to the house.

 

    Anyway, the house was way up in the hills with acres of space and private security so maybe the deadbolts weren’t necessary during the day when someone was home. His dad was probably packing heat. Probably. He doesn’t know as much as he’d like about the business, his dad won’t tell him much yet, but he’s going to work for him someday. After college, when he’s ready. He’s the one who’s staying, he’s the one who gets to learn about it all. Once he has his business degree, then he’d be useful, even.

 

    He doesn’t get an answer, but he hears rummaging around in the kitchen, so he drops his bags in the entryway and turns right, and gets as far as the breakfast nook before seeing… _him_.

 

    A skinny twink in black silk underwear that might have been made for a woman, hair down to his shoulders, a little peach fuzz coming in, wide green eyes when he looks up from the Everything Drawer where he’s been digging through highlighters and rolls of scotch tape and old screwdrivers from tool sets that aren’t sets anymore.

 

    “Uh… hi.” Crosby’s brow furrows. It’s not like his dad having guys over is a surprise, though he rarely brought them to the house when Crosby was growing up. He just knows sometimes he’d see his dad kiss another man, and he’d assumed he was too busy with work to really date when there was never anyone, but this… this guy is his age.

 

    “Oh, hey, you must be Crosby. D’you know where your dad keeps the drugs?”

 

    “Where my dad keeps the _what_?” Crosby’s eyebrows shoot up. Were drugs a _big_ part of the family business? And if so, why would he keep them at home for personal use? Granted, his dad was always more ‘don’t get high off your own supply’ than ‘dare to keep kids off drugs’ but still, in the house?

 

    “Oh. Hey, Cros.” His dad greets, entering from the other end of the kitchen, where it opened on the formal dining room.

 

    “Dad, why is this guy asking where you keep the drugs?”

 

    “Because I gave him some drugs earlier? Uh, did you, did you drop out of college? What are you doing here?”

 

    “It’s spring break. I came home to see you.”

 

    “Well that sounds like something a fucking loser would do.” He snorts. “Why didn’t you go to Cancun?”

 

    The twink in the women’s underwear laughs at that, before sidling up to Crosby’s dad to fawn.

 

    “Gross.” He grumbles, rolling his eyes. “I guess I’ll put my stuff away.”

 

    “Oh, play nice. Play nice, Cros. Honey, don’t mind him, why don’t you… find something you have in common, so Daddy can work.”

 

    He slaps the twink’s ass before leaving back the way he came. Crosby wishes he didn’t have to wonder what ‘Daddy’ he meant by that…

 

    “I guess your dad doesn’t give you any drugs, huh?” The twink asks. He follows after Crosby until they reach the living room, and Crosby turns down the hallway that leads to the bedrooms. The twink goes and flops out on the sofa, in his sexy underwear. Crosby doesn’t dignify him with a response, but he’s still there after he gets his stuff stowed and emerges again.

 

    “What gutter did my dad pick you out of, anyway?” Crosby asks, taking the far end of the sofa.

 

    “Don’t be mean.” The twink stretches out, his bare feet almost touching Crosby’s thigh. “Daddy said play nice.”

 

    “Please. Have a little dignity.”

 

    “Oh, that ship has sailed.” The twink giggles. “What? You’re gonna judge me for jumping on a hot older man with money?”

 

    “Yeah, a little.” He says, because the only other person to judge is his dad, and… Well, it’s… He can’t blame his dad. He knows he hasn’t done a good job by him, but he was young and unprepared and Crosby’s mom hasn’t been in the picture in a long time. He doesn’t think they were ever in love-- he thinks it was a different time and his dad needed to fake it with a girl, and then when he tried it, she got knocked up and they were barely in their twenties. Three times, but his mom took his sisters when she left, the three of them kept comfortably somewhere else, far away. And so he might have missed out on a lot of stuff that he can be more open about now, but even so, there’s no way this guy’s much older than Crosby is.

 

    “He picked me up at a hotel.” The twink smiles, like there’s a private joke in there somewhere. “I was having a real bad day and he was my knight in shining armor.”

 

    “That doesn’t sound like him.”

 

    “Well it wasn’t for free.” The twink snorts. “I was wined, dined, and sixty-nined. Well. I wasn’t really dined. The first time, I mean, but like… I dunno. I’ve been dined since then.”

 

    “I don’t really want to hear about you having sex with my dad.”

 

    “He knows a lot of things. About like… crime.”

 

    “Yeah.” Crosby rolls his eyes.

 

    “Which is what I do. You know. I do what he does. Sort of. Not the same but-- Anyway, it’s… he’s helpful, it’s cool.”

 

    “Whatever, dude, I don’t care. You don’t really know him, you’re just some boy he’s fucking to make him feel young.”

 

    “Yeah, I am. And it’s _great_.”

 

    They mostly ignore each other, for the rest of the afternoon. They watch the game show network, which they can somehow agree on. He doesn’t learn the twink’s name and he’s not going to learn it from his dad, who’ll call him ‘honey’ or ‘baby’ or ‘sweetheart’ because he probably won’t remember, he has too much on his mind to remember things like the names of flings, or the dates his son will be home from college. He could use a trusted lieutenant to help him run things, and then he could remember stuff like that. Maybe.

 

    The twink is still there at dinner-- Crosby grudgingly makes enough pasta for three, because he likes having a real kitchen he can use and his dad is hopeless as a cook, and he hadn’t asked him if he wanted something special ordered in and anyway if it’s good then maybe he’ll say so. The twink plays up to Crosby’s dad the whole meal, leaning in and fluttering his eyelashes, and eating all sexy.

 

    He has very pink lips but there’s nothing that special about them, it’s not like he’s the hottest piece of ass out there, just the showiest, maybe, because he moans around every other bite. Crosby is half hard under the table, and he hates the guy for it just a little, but he also holds onto the idea that someone appreciates dinner even if the moaning is mostly just a come-on. He certainly puts away enough he ought to be enjoying it.

 

\---

 

2- Acapulco

 

    Crosby has to be the easiest person to rile up he’s ever met and he loves that about him. The first morning, he’s eating Lucky Charms on the couch in his underwear and the look of disgust he gets is like magic.

 

    “Is that my fucking cereal?”

 

    “I doubt it, since you just got here.”

 

    “He was expecting me, he just forgot.”

 

    “Uh-huh, sure.” He snorts, but he feels a little bad about that. The Wolf King isn’t exactly a great father, apparently… Still, he cares about Crosby, the way he doesn’t care about some cheap fuck who’s good enough to bring up to the big house and show off to, but… Well, that’s about all he’s good for. He’s been warned by one of the Wolf King’s security guys that boys like him last as long as they’re pretty and shiny and new. He intends to stay pretty forever and ride this train as far as it goes, he’s never had a better fuck in his life. Or, well…

 

    He’s technically never had another fuck in his life? Yet, anyway. It’s not like they’re exclusive, it’s just… it’s just how it’s worked out so far.

 

    He knows he’s not going to last forever here. He knows he’s not going to be moved in. His picture’s never going to be on the piano. But there’s Crosby graduating high school. There on the mantle, there’s Crosby’s fucking sports trophies or whatever, he didn’t look very close. Crosby’s accomplishments are all over the place, must be nice. Temporary fucks don’t get bragged about like they belong.

 

    He never had much to put on the mantle, growing up. A fuckup who fell into a life of crime, that’s all. But the Wolf King makes him feel special. The Wolf King does all those weird things he used to jack off thinking about, talks dirty like a porno Dom and fucks just as good. Makes him feel alive.

 

    The first time wasn’t like that. The first time… It was a safehouse. And shit had just gone down. And he hadn’t known what was going to happen but there he was. Scraped up and scared half to death but alive and in one piece.

 

    There had been two of them. The nurse, and the Wolf King-- except he hadn’t been the Wolf King then, or, he had, but he didn’t know that. And the nurse put him in the Acapulco suite and told him that was his code name until he was ready to go home, and he’d listened to her talk to the Wolf King about how they needed rules-- except she called him something else then. He hadn’t cared a lot about that, mostly. He told her she could do what she wanted with her hospital as long as he had what he needed from their arrangement.

 

    Acapulco had very recently become very illegally very rich. When the nurse came to talk to him about membership and rules and all that shit, he’d just said ‘sign me up’. She put a chip in him. Which was kind of fucking cool. Then she told him if he said a word to anyone, someone would remove it. Somehow he didn’t think she only meant the chip. She might have meant his entire fucking arm.

 

    The Wolf King-- Niagara, then-- came to his room later. And Acapulco had jumped at the chance. There hadn’t been a moment of doubt in his mind. He learned how to suck cock and according to Niagara, discovered he had a talent for it as well as a taste.

 

    It was later, at another hotel, one the Wolf King picked him up and took him to… that was when he’d asked if it could be rough, and seen the way the man’s eyes lit up. Before long, he was flying.

 

    The third time, the Wolf King offered him coke and then he was really flying. He hadn’t seen any reason not to-- the Wolf King was together, so how bad could it be? Sure, he’d been told it was bad for him, but they said the same thing about pot and when he’d smoked pot it was nothing to him. Tried it once and never felt tempted. He let the Wolf King massage it into his gums, and then he’d had his mouth fucked, his hair pulled, been smacked around real good… It was all good. Plus he didn’t have to sleep for ages, which was a big bonus in his book. Ever since that one night, he hasn’t been real good with sleep.

 

    Well, he was never good with sleep, but he didn’t used to be afraid of sleeping, until he wound up with a lot of guns and a lot of money and maybe some enemies already but definitely enemies in his future.

 

    But the Wolf King took care of him. Gave him pointers. Said nice things sometimes, and he even brought him home, and maybe that didn’t make him special exactly, but… it was something.

 

    Still, he had been immediately and achingly jealous of the boy whose pictures were up in the living room, a thing he’d never had and never would. The boy who was at a nice college on Daddy’s dime.

 

    The boy-- man-- who had probably been the reason the Wolf King had Lucky Charms in his cupboard, even if he did forget about why he should bother. And when he’d said he’d cook dinner the Wolf King had nodded and said ‘yeah, you’re so good at that’, which he was never going to say to Acapulco because Acapulco couldn’t cook at all.

 

    Worst offense, though, there’s no expiration date on being a son. Acapulco’s only got this for as long as he’s pretty, after all. And shiny. And new. For as long as he’s interesting enough and no one better comes along.

 

    He changes the channel from cartoons to the Match Game

 

    “Richard Dawson was hot, wasn’t he?”

 

    “Yeah, if you like old men.” Crosby makes a face.

 

    “You know I do. Aw, don’t be mad-- you’ll be hot in like twenty years!” He calls after him.

 

    Crosby comes back in with a bowl of Lucky Charms of his own, glaring at the TV. They yell their answers out, and Acapulco normally wouldn’t keep score-- he normally doesn’t keep score, but Match Game’s not like Jeopardy! or anything, it’s not hard. He wishes he hadn’t bothered when it turns out he’s not winning, but Crosby’s not winning, either. They’re both doing better than the midwestern housewife.

 

    “Don’t eat my cereal.” Crosby says, during a commercial break.

 

    “Don’t eat _my_ cereal. Your dad said to be nice to me.” He adds, because he is at heart a little shit. And he likes the way Crosby practically turns purple.

 

    He winds up staying the whole day. He’s not really sure the Wolf King even notices that he hasn’t left.

 

\---

 

3- The Wolf King

 

    It was too much to hope they’d get along, he supposes. It would have kept them both out of his hair when he didn’t want Acapulco… Crosby was always a clingy kid, and that didn’t change much. Home for spring break, when he’d wired him enough money to go on a real trip…

 

    He at least hopes it’s because he’s squirreling the money away for something cool.

 

    Acapulco could have helped Crosby find an edge, or Crosby could have helped Acapulco learn a little class, that’s why he doesn’t kick him out when the weekend’s up, but instead of either of those things happening, he mostly catches them watching Game Show Network and sniping at each other, when he emerges from his office. Not even smoking dope, which… well, there’s Crosby for you. He talks a big game but he’s always been soft.

 

    Other times, Cros disappears into his room, presumably. And Acapulco has taken several opportunities to skinny dip in the pool out back, with no neighbors to see him. There’s a very nice view of the pool from the home office of the Wolf King. He even sets his work aside once or twice to watch.

 

    He’s watching on the day that Crosby walks out, gets far enough to see that Acapulco is buck ass naked in the hot tub, and turns right back around and goes inside. He winds up ordering pizza that night because Cros is sulking in his room and he’s been going over financials all day and does not care to bother with cooking. He doesn’t think his boy toy knows how.

 

    “Dad, can you control your slut?” Crosby asks, when he finally emerges from his room.

 

    “Yes I can.” He smiles. “But I don’t have time to spend all day managing him when I have paperwork to go over, he can handle himself.”

 

    “Well can you buy him a swimsuit at least? Not everybody wants to see that.”

 

    “Mm, well, uh… I do. So…” He shrugs. “Loosen up, Cros, a naked man is nothing you’ve never seen before. Treat it like a locker room and get over it.”

 

    “It’s different.” Crosby says, but he doesn’t put up much of a fight. Shame, he never does.

 

    “Yeah, Cros.” Acapulco grins. “Nothing to be shy about.”

 

    “You could stand to be shy for two seconds.” Crosby snaps.

 

    “Honey, settle down.” He pats Acapulco’s thigh. The kid has a real name, which he’s sure he knows. But he was Acapulco the night they met, he just thinks of him as that. He’d been legal by a couple years, not that everything they did together was.

 

    It was a couple years of assignations here and there, before he brought him to the house. A couple years of making sure Acapulco was fully under his sway when they did meet. He sometimes had boys at the house, of course, but they were boys who worked for him and had business being there, and even with Cros off at college, he never had them in his own bed.

 

    He’s fucked Acapulco in his own bed exactly once, because they were on a marathon and he knew they wouldn’t end there, that there was no danger of Acapulco falling asleep there ever. He’d popped a couple of pills and given the kid a line and they’d done it in most rooms and then Crosby had to come home for spring break, but… well, he couldn’t keep up that pace forever and he has a lot of work. Every couple of years there’ll probably be more to replace and upgrade, now that he’s financing a hospital, but he’s needed it and he’ll need it again… The Artemis hadn’t even been up and running when Acapulco had managed to find them, but, well… it all worked out. And he’s not a bad pet at all.


	2. Talk to Me About That One Big Break

4- Acapulco

 

    With Crosby home, they don’t do it all over the house anymore, which he figures is fair. He loves the pool house, a little space that’s just… set up for fucking. There are toys, a nice big bed, a beautiful view of the hills-- they close the blinds on the pool side, the side anyone from the house could see in, but not out the other side, where the whole wall is a window looking out on the view.

 

    He’s going to have a house like this. If he keeps playing his cards right, a house in these same hills with just as much space and just as big a pool. But until then, it’s really nice staying at the Wolf King’s.

 

    The pool house is great, he has his own bathroom there and the kitchenette doesn’t have a lot-- mostly the freezer holds overflow from the house and there’s a coffeemaker and mugs, but he’d had to bring some coffee and sugar out from the house. But the Wolf King had stocked it a little bit, with a bowl of oranges and a couple boxes of granola bars, in case he needed a snack after a real good round and didn’t want to drag himself back to the main house while wrecked. Mostly though, he’s happy to head to the house to eat real meals. And it’s nice to be able to walk right out to the pool first thing in the morning. He doesn’t sleep much, he wakes up early. Takes a dip and watches the sun rise, then goes inside for cereal, it’s a nice routine.

 

    He goads the Wolf King into a blowjob in the living room once, because Crosby’s not around, though the Wolf King’s barely out of the room when Crosby comes in.

 

    “Is Dad in his office?” Crosby asks, while Acapulco hastily wipes at his chin just in case. “Oh, gross, in here?”

 

    “Yeah. Why, you want one, too?” Acapulco laughs.

 

    Crosby disappears back into his room, slamming the door. Which is hilarious, really, the poor kid needs to loosen up.

 

    Well, ‘kid’... Crosby’s twenty, that’s not much younger than Acapulco. They’re basically the same age. He probably should be sucking Crosby’s cock instead, but he doesn’t like to think about that much. Anyway it wouldn’t… it wouldn’t be as good, probably. What does a kid younger than him know about sex? You need an older man for that, Acapulco thinks. Someone who can teach you stuff and anyway Niagara does all that stuff for him that… like, not just anybody would do. Stuff he needs, stuff that makes it really good, and some kid younger than him couldn’t do that.

 

    It wouldn’t have to be bad, necessarily. The irritation could boil over into anger, give it a little edge, Acapulco wouldn’t mind that at all, but it wouldn’t be the same. It would be fine. He doesn’t see anything wrong with letting it happen if it happens, just because he’s fucking Niagara. Maybe it is a little gross to tease him about how he’s fucking his dad, but like… it’s not gross to sleep with them both separately. Not if Niagara never finds out about it, anyway. He’d probably think it was gross… or he’d think it wasn’t okay for Acapulco to sleep with his son anyway just because… like, that’s his kid, under his roof, and he’s the one who’s kind of Acapulco’s sugar daddy. Not that he doesn’t have his own money but… Niagara still pays for shit when they are together, and is letting him stay in his house and eat his food.

 

    “Cros, c’mon.” Acapulco calls after him. He doesn’t feel bad, exactly, but he doesn’t feel good, either, once the first flush of amusement wears off. He didn’t have to tease him about that, he wouldn’t want some chick his age hanging around his house bragging about sucking his dad off… He’d freak out if she came onto him even as a joke. Mostly because he’d freak out about any girl coming onto him, and maybe Crosby’s straight and Acapulco’s got an overactive gaydar because he’s twenty-two and likes getting laid a lot and is an idiot.

 

    He knocks on the door. “Crosby! Hey, look--”

 

    There’s a _noise_ , and then a very strained ‘fuck off!’, and Acapulco’s been nursing a chub since he didn’t get the chance to get off himself, but _now_ … If he’s right, _hot_ , and if he’s wrong, he still has an erection so it doesn’t really matter.

 

    However, the idea does make him radically less apologetic.

 

    “Cros?” He licks his lips. Does he dare? Has he ever… not dared? “C’mon, what are you afraid of? Afraid of pissing off Daddy?”

 

    “Fuck o-off!” Crosby shouts back, and the breathy stutter to it is definitely something. It has to be something. Doesn’t it?

 

    Not that something has to come of it, but it does his ego good to think about it.

 

    He grabs some tissues and jacks off on the couch, hoping someone might walk in but not too disappointed when no one does. He doesn’t really care who, even if he probably should.

 

\---

 

5- The Wolf King

 

    Things go back to normal, when Crosby goes back to college. Once or twice, Acapulco asks an idle question about him, but never with much interest. He doesn’t normally spend a week at a time at the house, he has his own place, where he keeps his own interests… How much business he could possibly be doing, he doesn’t know. When he gets a phone call sometimes he fucks off to do it, though. And of course he can’t expect to use the Wolf King’s car and driver for his separate business, but he can get a lift off the property if it means he won’t be calling a cab up to the house. And he can beg to come back and pick up where they left off when his business is done, and sometimes the answer is yes.

 

    He gives him friendly advice, now and then, but never too much-- never enough. The start of some friendly advice, and then he stops, says how complicated it is. Says Daddy would be happy to take care of all of that for him.

 

    Acapulco isn’t smart, but he’s smart enough to say no. He understands their situation lasts for about as long as he’s pretty, and if he hands over any assets, he’ll have nothing to fall back on when someone prettier comes along.

 

    Honestly, he’d been hoping to get him back when he was fresh… he’d been so _vulnerable_ , when they’d met. The sole survivor of a deal gone very wrong, it had left him with a whole lot of product, money, and information. One piece of information had been the location of the Artemis, something his old boss had been privileged enough to be given, before the Artemis was officially open for business.

 

    Well, the Wolf King had come away with his own fair share of information that night. Acapulco was young, dumb, suddenly rich, and very emotional. And desperate for an older man to take him under his wing, too… He’d been kicked out at eighteen, spent the last two years clinging to his boss until the man died in a shootout. Oh, it couldn’t have been better if he’d designed it, replacement father figure gunned down right in front of him and here he was, man’s blood soaked into his clothes, shaking…

 

    It should have worked. He was sweet, charming-- very handsome. In his prime, really, he didn’t peak before forty, never looked as good as he does now. And he’d made it very clear he could be Acapulco’s new Daddy, if he liked that.

 

    Well, he did. He liked that a lot, but he wouldn’t give up his nascent empire, wouldn’t come and work for the Wolf King. But he bit his lip and said all the right things, and even if there was no little addition to his own empire in it, having a boy toy is enough reason to keep him around. At least knowing he likes it rough.

 

    Everything about Acapulco screams ‘twink with daddy issues’, but then… that’s just the way he likes them. Young, dumb, and desperate to please.

 

    They don’t normally last too long. He’s good to the ones who play the game right for him, he’s generous-- mostly he fucks the boys he hires-- takes one for a few weeks, maybe a couple months, gives him the cushiest jobs as long as he does what Daddy tells him. When the shine wears off, then he moves onto the next one, but they know the deal and they stay loyal when their turn is up. They appreciate a good thing, and he never lies and says they’re special.

 

    He doesn’t lie to Acapulco exactly. He doesn’t tell him he’s special or that he’ll last, but… he lets him last. Acapulco is still pretty, and the way he’s hooked is delicious… the way he begs for more is very nice. And he can wreck him a little harder since he doesn’t have to rely on him to do a job in the morning.

 

    Acapulco lasts those first two years and then from that spring through to the summer, the amount of time he spends at the house overall staying about even. He doesn’t lie to him, but he doesn’t tell him the extra time means nothing-- it’s useful to let him think what he wants to think about things. He could chase a little strange any time, after all, but he feels like he could get more out of Acapulco if he continues to play his cards right. Maybe not his stuff, his money, his empire, but… something. Information, contacts, something.

 

\---

 

6- Crosby

 

    It becomes a running joke within the first week back from spring break, when he complains enough about the nearly-naked twink his dad is dating for all his friends to decide he has a crush on him.

 

    He doesn’t. He had a couple boners, yes, which he does not tell his friends about, because gross. Boners you have to expect when you come home to a nearly naked boy in your house! When he walks around in women’s underwear shaking his ass and making crude comments and sexy noises, and when you look out the window and he’s hanging out naked by the pool, but like… that has nothing to do with liking him at all. Acapulco would be gross even if he wasn’t banging his dad.

 

    He’d assumed he’d never see him again, that he’d get home and there might be someone new or there might be no one, but when he arrives home for the summer, Acapulco is there. He even has new panties, which… Crosby wishes he didn’t know were new, at least since spring.

 

    “You like ‘em? They were four hundred bucks.” Acapulco winks.

 

    “How come you never wear pants?” Crosby groans. “Where’s Dad?”

 

    “Daddy likes me _accessible_.” He licks his lips and struts over to the sofa, stretches his legs out. “Where do you think?”

 

    In his office, which meant Do Not Disturb… Crosby groans and takes the opposite end of the sofa once more. Of course he wouldn’t remember which day…

 

    “You’re still an asshole, I take it.”

 

    “Yup.” Acapulco _winks_.

 

    “Dude can you sit normally, because when you put your legs up I can see your balls.”

   

    “Only if you’re looking for ‘em.”

 

    “I hate you so much.” Crosby groans.

 

    Acapulco blows him a kiss. Crosby whips a throw pillow at him. They both almost laugh and then resolutely stare at the TV while Acapulco fumbles with the remote.

 

    “Oh. You’re home, good.” His dad’s voice, from the hallway, and Crosby scrambles up from the couch.

 

    “Yeah. It was today.” He nods. Good? Something inflates in his chest, big and warm. It’s good that he’s home?

 

    “Cros, I think… this summer is a good time for you and me to start talking business.” He lopes into the room, beckons Crosby in, and this is exactly what he’s been waiting for. He’d been told college first, and he hadn’t complained about that, he likes college fine. He hurries over, and there’s not a hug waiting for him, there’s never a hug, but this time there’s a smile, and a warm hand resting against the side of his neck. “Why don’t you come on into the office, Son?”

 

    “Yeah, Dad, whatever you want to talk about, I’m ready. I won’t let you down!”

 

    “Well… you’ll do your best. I know you will.”

 

    He hasn’t been inside his father’s office in years. He’s looked through the door when it’s been ajar-- once, in high school, when it hadn’t been latched, he’d pushed it open wide to peek in, but he hadn’t crossed the threshold, not since he was maybe eight.

 

    There’s a big window out onto the backyard-- the pool, really. The door faces the bookshelves and the little bar where there’s a framed photograph, eight year old Crosby on Uncle Tommy’s shoulders, and then to the left there was a wall of windows out onto the backyard-- the pool, really-- and to the right, the desk. Everything midcentury modern and classy, walnut and brass and leather, and a color scheme revolving around ‘Caribbean Coral’. The only thing that hadn’t been the same back when Crosby had been inside before is the painting behind the desk, a modern geometric wolf’s head.

 

    “Sit down, you want a drink?”

 

    He’s a little shy of twenty-one still, but he’s been allowed to drink the occasional glass of wine at home since he was sixteen, and he’s taken advantage of the occasional college party where no one bothers to ask who’s grabbing a beer and how legal they are. Well… a couple times, but not as much as he thinks most people do. He just doesn’t like beer much. He’s never had a drink-drink before, though.

 

    “Whatever you’re having.” He nods, excited, and takes the chair across from the desk. It’s not comfortable, it’s probably designed not to be. He doesn’t care.

 

    “I know we were going to wait until after college…” His dad begins, making up a couple of drinks-- some brown liquor from a crystal decanter, and seltzer. For Crosby, mostly seltzer. “But I think it’s important that you understand some things now… After all, you’re a man. And you’re going to be home over the summer, and the summer after this… and when you’re in my house, Cros, I need to know I can rely on you.”

 

    “Of course, Dad. I’ll do anything.”

 

    “I know you will.” He nods, and his expression is serious now, his voice soft, as he passes off a drink and leans against his desk. Holds his own glass out in a toast. “I know. And I haven’t been doing my due diligence as your father… I should have been preparing you a little bit at a time since before now, but… well, a father has his blind spots. You’ve been growing up and I’ve been treating you like a kid.”

 

    “Dad-- no-- I mean…” Crosby stammers, then takes a sip. He’s relieved his is mostly seltzer, he’d hate to wind up choking on the burn of it in front of his dad, especially now, and it does burn a little, but not too bad.

 

    “No, no, I’ve… uh, I’ve been… un, unfair to you. But it’s time for that to change.”

 

    “You’ve always done your best. I know that. I know it wasn’t easy, and-- But you’ve always given me every advantage in life, and… and you’ve always taught me the value of working hard and getting smart and--”

 

    He holds a hand up and Crosby falls silent immediately. But he’s smiling too, a little.

 

    “Well, thank you, kiddo, I, I appreciate that. But if you’re going to be my right hand man someday, then there’s a lot more I have to teach you… In fact, I think I’d better make some time for you tomorrow, it’s time for you to learn how to shoot, I should have been teaching you how to handle a firearm since you were a kid…”

 

    He’d made sure Crosby learned to fight, enrolled him in karate classes, boxing lessons, had him sign up for wrestling… but he’d never taken him to the gun range. He’d always said he was too soft for it, and gone alone. Crosby doesn’t know where the change came in, what he’d done to impress him, but all he really cares about is that they’re going together this time, that his dad is making time for him.

 

    “I’d like that a lot, yeah. I’ll be a fast learner.”

 

    “Sure. Well that’s one important thing down, we can spend some time this summer teaching you, and, uh, I’m sure you’ll take to it fine. We’ll save most of the, ah, business side for when you’ve got college taken care of, you don’t need to worry about all that when you’ve got your classes to think about, just… well. There is one thing I need you to know. Now this is important, son, I need to know I can trust you with something _big_.”

 

    “Anything. I swear.” He nods, breathless. He gets another smile, his dad leans forward to clap a hand down on his shoulder.

 

    “Good boy. I’m going to show you something.” He says, hand leaving Crosby’s shoulder too soon as he straightens up and goes around his desk.

 

    He comes out with a matchbook, ‘Hotel Artemis’ written across the front.

 

    “You know where that is?”

 

    “Kind of?” Crosby nods. It’s in downtown LA, but it’s an abandoned building as far as he knows. Distinctive, pretty, but… he’d never imagined there was anything worthwhile to it besides what it added to the view out a car window if you had to get across town.

 

    “Well you make sure you go from ‘kind of’ to ‘definitely’, because if anything happens to me, that’s where you need to take me. No hospitals, unless you don’t want to see dear old dad for a long, long time. Do we, do we understand each other? If someone tries to take me out and I need medical attention, this is where you take me. Otherwise, otherwise there are, uh… complications. And Daddy gets sent up the river, which is going to be a lot less accommodating than Cedars-Sinai. So let’s skip that, and make sure I get taken care of.”

 

    “Of course. I can do that.”

 

    “Good boy. I’m glad I can put my trust in you, Cros, that makes your old man happy. Now, you run along, get unpacked, have a swim… whatever you want to do with your day. Enjoy your first day back home for the summer with no responsibilities, and tomorrow we’ll go to the gun range and get you started. And you can, you can leave your glass in the kitchen, it’ll get back to the bar when the dishes are done.”

 

    “Yeah-- right. Whatever you say, Dad-- totally.” He gets to his feet, thrilled when there’s another pat to his shoulder as he’s dismissed.

 

    “Good talk, kiddo.” He says, as he shuts the door behind Crosby.

 

    Acapulco is curled up on his side on the couch, fuming, which makes it all the sweeter.

 

    Acapulco, he realizes, has never been in the office.

 

    “Business talk, huh?” He pouts. Crosby grins.

 

    “Yeah.”

 

    “You gonna mow the lawn and take out the trash to get your allowance like a good boy?” There’s a sneer to it, but it’s marred by too much jealousy to sting.

 

    “I’m not at liberty to discuss my father’s business with you.” Crosby says, with just a hint of a smirk, before knocking back the last of his drink.

 

    That part is a mistake-- he does wind up coughing, and Acapulco snorts and calls him a lightweight, but still. He drops his glass off in the kitchen and goes to his room to unpack, before changing into his trunks and heading out to the pool to take advantage of the sulking fit, which meant Acapulco wouldn’t be out there skinny dipping any time soon.


	3. You Sit There in Your Heartache

7- The Wolf King

 

    Crosby is pretty competent. A little gun-shy at first, a little hesitant to pull the trigger when he thinks too hard about aiming the gun at another person instead of a paper target.

 

    All he has to do is say he maybe should have brought Acapulco instead, though, and Crosby finds some nerve.

 

    Interesting. Something he can make work. After all, it was important to find new ways of motivating your people… He doles out a ‘good job’ when Crosby _earns_ it. Ruffles his hair when they finish, gives that smile of fatherly approval.

 

    “How about I buy you a milkshake?” He offers. That, that works like a charm-- the chosen reward after years of childhood sports, one that had to be, again, _earned_. Not necessarily for an overall win, not where team sports were concerned, no. But individual merit. Blood, sweat, quantifiable points scored… grit. And the desire to please. Grit and the desire to please most of all.

 

    “Dad, I’m not ten.” Crosby says, but his face lights up, and he’s quick to turn back to him after ducking his head. “But I mean yeah, like… for nostalgia, or whatever, we could.”

 

    They drive through, he orders one of each and graciously gives Crosby the first pick, smiling innocently when Crosby looks at the third milkshake and frowns.

 

    “We’re taking one home to your boyfriend?”

   

    “He’s not my ‘boyfriend’, I’m not a kid, either.” He snorts. “He can have whatever’s left, I’m not dealing with him pouting if we show up with milkshakes and he doesn’t get anything.”

 

    He can see Crosby bite back a retort, before settling on chocolate, and on the drive back, he shoots the occasional venomous glance towards the last milkshake. Back at the house, he carries the spare in, holding it up to get Acapulco’s attention-- which also works like a charm, even without the power of nostalgia and years of reinforcement. Acapulco is a sucker for any kind of little favor, be it a pair of panties that ran over four hundred dollars, or a milkshake that came out to less than four.

 

    “Ah-ah-ah.” He holds it up out of Acapulco’s reach with a grin. “Crosby earned his. What are you going to do to earn yours?”

 

    “Don’t I do everything to earn my treats?” Acapulco pouts. “You know I’m good for it.”

 

    “You have to earn it first or it doesn’t mean anything.” He shakes his head, going to his favorite chair, dropping elegantly into it still holding a milkshake in each hand.

 

    Acapulco’s eyes dart nervously between him and Crosby, and he chuckles.

 

    “Nothing like that, honey, just… give me a little show. Do a little dance for Daddy, huh?”

 

    Crosby is fully pouting over the transfer of attention, making that face over the use of ‘Daddy’, but Acapulco is eager to please, and… well, there’s only so much attention to go around. He’s just going to have to work harder if he wants a bigger share. They’ll both have to work hard, in their separate ways.

 

    Acapulco goes to the stereo, doesn’t bother messing with the CD changer, just lets whatever’s in play. He dances well, when he’s sober, has his moves mentally choreographed. He works hard to be appealing, and the fact that he’s so eager to work for it might be as good as seeing him shimmy around in his underwear.

 

    Crosby leaves the room in a huff, going out the sliding glass door onto the patio, and he spares the kid a glance-- mostly to keep an eye on his mood, it’s all a delicate balancing act. He may or may not have to be ‘sorry’ later. No… not ‘sorry’, no… after today he thinks it only needs to be a little whisper of man-to-man talk, a little ‘well I have to manage him, I mean I can’t trust him like I trust _you_ and he gets so moody’, and then Crosby’s back in his pocket.

 

    A little bit because glancing away means Acapulco works harder. When Acapulco swings into his lap, he presents the milkshake.

 

    “How about a thank you?” He smirks-- Acapulco had started sucking it down immediately, which is… not unlike Acapulco, in his experience. The grateful kiss he’s given tastes like strawberry, which is not as enjoyable as it sounds by a long shot. “There’s a good boy.”

 

\---

8- Crosby

 

    This summer is better than last summer had been, and definitely better than spring break. It means more time with Acapulco, but… there’s a lot more actual father-son time! Even if Acapulco is sometimes invited or indulged, they still do more together, and he’s getting pretty good at handling a gun, even if he doesn’t really like it. But he can! And if his dad ever needs him, he’s going to be ready, whatever it takes.

 

    He hopes it doesn’t take shooting a person, but if that person was shooting at his dad, he would, of course he would. He might throw up after. Or cry… which is worse.

 

    And he hates Acapulco most of the time-- the guy’s an asshole and he seriously needs to shut up about his sex life, considering who it’s with-- but sometimes he’s weirdly tolerable. Or… nice?

 

    He’s nice when he drops into the center seat of the couch, when Crosby is already tucked into one corner, TV on and a sci-fi novel he can’t quite focus on in hand, and Acapulco can’t sit like a normal person at all but he at least keeps himself upright for once in his life, crossing his legs and biting his lip and looking over, uncertain. It’s late at night and he’s just come back from the poolhouse, maybe forty-five minutes after Crosby had seen his dad come in and head to bed.

 

    Also for once in his life, Acapulco is wearing a bathrobe over his panties. Small mercies. He looks a little glazed, but not the way he does when he’s on coke. Crosby doesn’t really want to think about why.

 

    “Hey.” Acapulco whispers.

 

    “Hey.” Crosby puts his book down. “What do you wa-- I mean-- d’you need something?”

 

    “Couldn’t sleep… I will in a little bit, I’m sleepy but I’m wired. Always… just kinda… I get insomnia real bad.”

 

    “Then maybe you shouldn’t snort coke.”

 

    “Doesn’t really change much. Except when sleep freaks me out too much it’s easier to stay awake. And it’s more fun. But… like… I always couldn’t sleep, that’s not the coke.”

 

    Acapulco is older than he is, but he’s so short and so baby-faced that Crosby can’t help thinking he’s… not, somehow. Or at least, even if he is, someone should look out for him. Someone other than his dad… Someone far away, preferably.

 

    “You cook real good.” Acapulco yawns, and Crosby feels a little more generous towards him. His dad has said he’s good at cooking before, but there’s always been an undercurrent of disapproval, like he shouldn’t have gotten good at it somehow. Just another thing that made Crosby ‘soft’. But Acapulco doesn’t sound like that. He sounds genuine.

 

    “Thanks.”

 

    “No, I mean it. Everything you make is really good. I never learned how to cook for shit, man, when I’m at my place, do you know what I eat? Cereal. Or ramen. Like I’m poor. Or frozen pizza. I don’t… I dunno.”

 

    “You don’t go out?”

 

    “Not really. I don’t like to eat in restaurants alone. And… when I’m at my place, like… sometimes I get-- I don’t like someone knocking at the door, I always think it’s gonna be trouble, so I can’t, I don’t like to get delivery there. I just…” He rubs at his arms through the sleeves of the robe. “I like getting to eat here. And… I like getting food brought in fine but like… you cook just as good as any of the restaurants we get stuff from. So… Thanks for like… just, I dunno. Thanks.”

 

    “Well… any time, I guess. I like doing it. I mean…” He finds himself relaxing. “Well, you know. It’s always been just Dad and me and someone’s got to take care of him.”

 

    “Yeah, he can’t cook for shit, either.” Acapulco laughs. “You’re a good son. I wasn’t, I guess.”

 

    “Thanks.” Crosby whispers, and it’s not the same as hearing it from his dad, but… it still makes him feel warm.

 

    “I got kicked out. Like… I dunno what it’s like to have your parents actually want you to come home.”

 

    “Neither do I.” It slips out before he can stop himself.

 

    “Are you kidding? Is this because of spring break? You know he wants you back for the summer, anyway.”

 

    “Yeah, I know. That was-- I know.”

 

    “He’s been telling me for weeks to get along with you when you got here… like, ‘cause I’ve got an apartment I could go to if we can’t play nice but this is your house. And like… you’ll live here after college and everything.”

 

    “He said that?”

 

    “Yeah. He talks about you sometimes. Like how you’re going to be working for him and staying at home and taking care of a bunch of important stuff once you’re ready and like… I dunno.”

 

    “Oh.”

 

    “I don’t think people talk about me when I’m not around.”

 

    “Sure they do. Like… ‘hey, who was that asshole?’ Or… ‘where are his pants?’” Crosby elbows him, grinning. “Dad mentions you sometimes, too. Even though I basically beg him not to. It’s fucking weird we’re the same age, dude.”

 

    “No. I mean… no. It’s not weird.”

 

    “It’s weird we’re the same age and you call him ‘Daddy’.”

 

    “It’s just a thing it doesn’t mean stuff. It doesn’t mean I want to fuck my real dad because I call yours Daddy. Or like-- It doesn’t mean anything sick, dude. It just… I dunno, it’s sexy. But it’s not like… creepy. I’ve never called my real dad ‘daddy’. You don’t say ‘daddy’. It’s not like some fuckin’... real thing.”

 

    “It’s still weird.”

 

    “Whatever.” Acapulco tips over onto his side.

 

    Crosby returns to his book, or tries to, before he decides it’s time to turn in. When he turns to Acapulco, he finds him sleeping. He turns the TV off and leaves him there.

 

\---

 

9- Acapulco

 

    He and Crosby have something of a turf war over the pool. Every time Crosby comes out in his swimming trunks to see Acapulco already skinny dipping, he throws his usual hissy fit and eventually he disappears again. For a while, if Acapulco comes out to see him already swimming, he just goes over to the lounger. Sometimes the big umbrella casts a shadow over it, sometimes it doesn’t. He’s gotten very freckley already, has been since spring, but he never really tans. His back burns if he’s not careful, because the Wolf King isn’t a guy you ask to put sunscreen on your back.

 

    This time, though, he comes out and sees Crosby doing laps in his dorky swim trunks-- and goggles, fucking goggles, but like… is he on his college swim team? Acapulco doesn’t think so. Swim teams usually have caps and they shave their body hair and Crosby’s a little hairy. Like, hot, definitely, if he were older then Acapulco would be… very interested. As it is he’d say yes if he were asked, but despite that moment they may or may not have had over spring break, for the most part Crosby just treats him like he’s gross. This time, he comes out and sees Crosby swimming, and he thinks… why the hell should he go back inside? He’s not the one with a problem. There’s more than enough room for two.

 

    “You wanna play Marco Polo?” He greets, slipping out of his silk shorts, leaving them with his towel on the lounger.

 

    “Dude, it’s my turn, you can’t come in here!” Crosby bobs up, scowling.

 

    “Why not?”

 

    “Like-- and _please_ put some shorts on! Because it’s my turn and I don’t want your dick floating around while I’m swimming.”

 

    “I mean my dick is still gonna be very much attached to my body, so… fuck you, I can swim if I want to. The water washes around your junk the exact same amount whether you wear a swimsuit or not so don’t get all high and mighty, that’s what the chlorine and shit is for.”

 

    “At least swim in your underwear. I don’t want to see it.”

 

    “Are you kidding? Do you know what your dad spent on those? If I ruin them because you’re being a little bitch, I’m the one who’s gonna get in trouble. What’s the big deal?”

 

    “The big deal is I’m not playing Marco Polo with a nudist and I think I have the right to not want to see my dad’s boy toy in the buff.”

 

    Acapulco grabs his shorts, even going to far as to hold them in front of himself for a fraction of modesty. “How about we make a deal?”

 

    “Is that deal you stop showing me your dick?”

 

    “I’ll put them back on for a minute if you can do me a favor. And then… What if I take the hot tub while you swim some more, and then we switch? If you can’t even be in the same water as a naked man.”

 

    “It’s not the concept of a naked man that’s the problem.” He pulls his goggles up to his forehead just so he can roll his eyes, but he hauls himself up out of the pool when Acapulco shimmies back into his shorts. “What’s the favor?”

 

    Acapulco holds out the tube of sunscreen, not meeting his eyes. “Just get my back, dude, I’m really sick of having this one spot that always burns.

 

    Crosby doesn’t even ask why he doesn’t go get Daddy to do it. Somehow that makes it worse, and Acapulco can’t think why.

 

    “Yeah, okay. If you get mine, I need to reapply.”

 

    It feels weird, just being touched. It’s for a reason, but that reason isn’t wanting anything from him, except to have him return the favor and keep his dick mostly put away. The opposite of why the Wolf King touches him. He doesn’t think he likes it, or maybe he really likes it. Crosby has big hands, and it feels like he’s actually being… careful? Also the opposite of his dad… and Acapulco likes the way the Wolf King makes him feel, he likes the rough stuff and feeling wanted and possessed. He likes all that a lot, but… this also feels nice.

 

    It’s super weird, but Acapulco doesn’t really want it to end, either.

 

    “Okay, you’re all done.” Crosby says, way too soon, but… well, touching back isn’t a bad consolation prize.

 

    “You’re gonna have to sit down, dude, you’re too tall.”

 

    “I’m not as tall as my dad.”

 

    “Yeah but I’m not gonna climb you like a tree to make sure I don’t miss a spot doing your shoulders. I’ll get your lower back while you’re standing. Anyway, he never hangs out by the pool, even though he has this really great one.”

 

    “He used to.” Crosby shrugs, sitting on the end of the lounger to let Acapulco get his shoulders. “He taught me to swim when I was little. He’d take time off on the weekends. Not the whole weekend but like… some, anyway.”

 

    “Yeah? What was that like?” Acapulco asks, his voice soft. He doesn’t really need to massage the stuff in that much, but he does, because he also never gets to touch the Wolf King like this, and Crosby’s back is really nice. Strong.

 

    “It was fun.” Crosby sighs. He sounds so quiet, distant… He sounds like he hasn’t been so happy since then, and Acapulco doesn’t know what to do with that idea. He’d kind of thought the answer would be ‘he threw me off the deep end’. “When I was little, we spent a lot of time out here… for a little while. The three of us.”

 

    “Oh.” Acapulco says. He’s never seen a picture of Crosby’s mom. It’s like she never existed. He’s never even thought about her. “The three of you, cool.”

 

    “Mm. Dad would hold me and tell me to kick and how to move my arms, and then he’d tell me I didn’t need him to hold me anymore, and to just swim to Uncle Tommy.”

   

    “Oh. Not your mom.”

 

    “No.” Crosby laughs. “Not my mom. Our bodyguard. For like, the first ten years of my life. From before my mom left. He was the best bodyguard we ever had. That was back before my dad was such a big deal, but… enough to need a bodyguard. The stuff he inherited from his dad wasn’t like what he made… He’s really incredible like that…”

 

    Acapulco doesn’t need to take so much time, but he likes listening to Crosby-- or he likes learning more about his father, all the stuff he isn’t told, and… it’s weird to imagine the Wolf King as a young father teaching his son to swim, but there’s something about knowing that he’d taken something and built it that Acapulco likes-- something about the idea that he could do the same with the fortune he’d found.

 

    “My old man never taught me to swim. We had a pool and all. My mom would sit out there to like… make sure I wouldn’t drown. But no one ever taught me. And we never had a bodyguard. Is having a bodyguard cool?”

 

    “Uncle Tommy was. He’d do stuff with me all the time when my dad was busy. Keep me safe and junk. He was like… a real uncle. Except he carried a gun and stuff. Well, I guess some people’s uncles do. He was the closest thing I had, anyway… None of the bodyguards Dad’s had since are really as good. Like… I dunno, I guess they’re okay.”

 

    “Stand up? That’s neat, that like… people did stuff with you.” He works his way lower when Crosby rises, adds more sunscreen. “I was just kind of… I dunno. My parents wanted a kid, man, but then they got me and I wasn’t the right one.”

 

    “That sucks.”

 

    “Yeah, well. Now you know why I like having an older man to take care of me, huh? You gonna make it weird?”

 

    “No. It’s not weird.” Crosby says, and his voice is still all soft. He turns around before Acapulco takes his hand away, so that it trails over his skin, around his side, so that he touches his abs, and he lets himself stay for a moment because Crosby doesn’t slap him away. “My mom just wanted daughters. I don’t see them much. But I’ve got Dad.”

 

    “Thanks.” He says, hand falling away before he can be slapped or shoved or… well, whatever. “So, uh, pool’s yours and like… when you’re done we’ll switch?”

 

    “Yeah. Totally. I just want to get a few more laps in, like… really feel the burn and all.” Crosby nods, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet and stretching out a shoulder. Which is unfair, because he really is hot for just being twenty.

 

    Acapulco turns away, ditching his shorts and heading for the hot tub, watching Crosby from there as he takes a perfect dive off the board. He sinks down into the water, closing his eyes, listening to Crosby cutting through the water. Listening to him when he eventually climbs out, the sound of bare wet feet slapping along the edge of the pool.

 

    “Your turn.” He says.

 

    Acapulco just climbs over the little ledge keeping the pool and hot tub separate, hanging onto it, kicking his legs. He bobs along towards the shallow end, one hand barely leaving the ledge, until he’s back to where he trusts himself to paddle around, back and forth across the shallow end, ungainly. He waits to hear Crosby make fun of him from the hot tub, but he never does.


	4. Will Nature Make a Man of Me Yet

10- Acapulco

 

    Sometimes, lying on his stomach on the bed in the poolhouse, looking out the window, he feels like he belongs here. He usually feels like he belongs right where he is whenever he’s the focus of the Wolf King’s full attention… which is usually in the poolhouse, when he’s being pounded into, hands fisted in the bedsheets, throat raw from howling in pleasure… But sometimes he just feels like he belongs.

 

    He belongs, because this is what he was born to. Because his parents have a house like this, only not as big, not as cool, they don’t have live-in staff… even if that staff is mostly guys who prowl around ready to kill people who don’t belong there, or run off and do whatever else they get told to do. He belongs here because he’s comfortable in a house that’s too big, with a view this good, he’d gotten used to his crappy apartment but he doesn’t belong there.

 

    He belongs here, or someplace just as good or better. And when he lies in bed, alone again and sore and flying high, he just feels good knowing that.

 

    Sometimes he goes and opens the blinds on the pool side, and looks up at the big house. He tries to figure out which window must be which, except he thinks the Wolf King’s bedroom might face off to the side, not the back. And Crosby’s faces out to the front lawn and the big tree. So neither of them can really look out to the poolhouse from their rooms, so it’s not weird if he stands there naked, with the blinds open, staring up at the house where they both just live, all the time, inside.

 

    He thinks about his life as if it was a movie, on nights like that when he can’t sleep and the world seems like it belongs to him. When he’s a little high and a little sore. High angle on the pool and the poolhouse. Push in on the window. Focus in on Acapulco, medium shot to keep the full frontal out of frame after that first glimpse to let you know he’s standing there naked. Push in, push in, push in, until you’re right in his face and the eyes are the window to the soul, and you see him looking up at that big house and the music swells a little and you know someday he’ll have a big house of his own.

 

    Zoom out, he thinks. Acapulco turns his face away from the window. There’s a figure in the room behind him, in the shadows. A naked man, tall, leaving the bed. In the movie version of his life he’s only ever alone if he wants to be. Acapulco’s hand goes to the drapes, and the tall, handsome man comes up behind him. Pan down to big hands resting warm at his waist, a body pressing close against his from behind.

 

TALL HANDSOME MAN

Come back to bed, baby. Come back to bed.

 

    Focus on Acapulco’s neck, being kissed, full lips and white teeth. And on the sound of heavy breathing and sexy little chuckles, hands sliding over his body. Pan to the bed, rumpled already, warm and waiting. Push in, push in, push in. The music swells again and the screen fades to black, and Acapulco spends the night in someone’s arms.

 

\---

 

11- Crosby

 

    He misses college every once in a while. He likes being home now that his dad has more time for him, and Acapulco isn’t all bad, but he hasn’t had sex in two months and it’s hard to just not think about it when Acapulco is… well, what he is.

 

    He texts Johnny Z, from the privacy of his room. Sometimes just words. A few times pictures. In another life, he thinks they’d be boyfriends. They have a lot in common. Well, they have enough in common. Gay sons of gay dads. Except Johnny’s dads were together and happy and had had him through a surrogate on purpose and they’re like… neurosurgeons, but they don’t put any expectations on him to follow in their footsteps if that’s not what makes him happy. They let him pursue some kind of arts major.

 

    Johnny’s got a godfather who’s a fed, though, and Crosby’s dad is the Wolf King of Los Angeles, so they’re not boyfriends, they’re just friends who fuck. Well, who trade blowjobs a lot when they’re alone together, anyway. They’ve gotten pretty good at it.

 

    He envies Johnny sometimes-- Johnny, whose dads do embarrassing things like give him serious lectures about sex, but who don’t have nearly-naked twinks bopping around their house. Johnny, who was never an inconvenience, or a burden, or a strain on their happiness. Johnny, who has weird hobbies he’s always been encouraged in.

 

    Johnny’s dads wouldn’t make him feel weird about liking to cook, or wonder how he turned out as anything other than a carbon copy of them, or fuck boys their son’s age. And he loves his dad and he’s glad he doesn’t live in New Jersey but he still gets jealous sometimes. And then he feels guilty for being jealous.

 

    Johnny’s dads had wanted him to go to Rutgers where he’d be close to home but had supported his going all the way to UCLA. Crosby’s close enough that he could drop in on weekends, but his dad wants him to learn independence, to not come running home too often just because he’s close, because he should be spending weekends cutting loose with his peers and not sitting on the couch with his old man.

 

    They don’t just send dick pics. Crosby shows Johnny the view from his bedroom window and the pool, and his old ‘secret fort’ in the backyard, and the hills. Johnny shows him the views there, the trees and the shape of the land so different from what Crosby’s known his whole life. He sends a picture of himself at the gun range once, and Johnny sends a picture of an old photo, himself in high school, holding a shotgun and standing next to one of his dads, and one of those clay pigeon flinging machines. Another of himself wearing an oversized jacket that might have been cool in the eighties, a note about a long-overdue closet cleaning going on throughout the house, and so Crosby sends back a picture of himself in the most ridiculous thing he can find.

 

    Mostly, though, they get around to the dick pics and texts typed one-handed.

 

    When he finds a box of popsicles in the freezer, he snags one and heads outside, to pose out on the lounger where the angle on the natural lighting would be just right, and then he works on capturing exactly the right selfie.

 

    “Dude, are you stealing my popsicles now?” Acapulco squawks indignantly, emerging from the poolhouse and almost startling Crosby into dropping his phone. “I bought those!”

 

    “Did you buy them with my dad’s money?”

 

    “If you’re going to steal my popsicles, at least take the orange ones, the red ones are the best ones!” He whines, not protesting that he had indeed bought them on Daddy’s dime.

 

    “Yeah, I know.” Crosby smirks, and then takes an unnecessarily long lick.

 

    “I mean, the red ones are-- Wait, you ‘know’? Dude, are you--” Acapulco scrambles over to try and look at Crosby’s phone, when he resumes trying to get a good angle. “Are you texting your _boyfriend_? Are you using my sexy popsicles to be sexy for your man? That’s not cool!”

 

    “He’s not my boyfriend. He’s just a friend who sucks dick.”

 

    “Is he hot? Is he tall?”

 

    “Yeah. And like… about my height I guess? So yeah.”

 

    “Hot. Show me a picture of him-- come on, dude, please. You owe me for that popsicle, next time just fucking take an orange one.”

 

    “I’ll take whatever popsicles I want.”

 

    “At least get good at it. No, no, hold your head like this--” Acapulco mimes the precise angle and depth, then grabs the hand holding Crosby’s phone, hovering just behind it so that he can gauge the angle of the shot. “Okay, like-- dude, work with me? Is that your idea of bedroom eyes?”

 

    Crosby takes the popsicle out of his mouth, gesturing with it, and Acapulco groans, frustrated.

 

    “Are you trying to direct me?”

 

    “If you’re going to be hopeless at sexy selfies, then yeah, I am. You are not slutty enough to do this without my help!”

 

    “Well you _are_ the biggest slut I know.” He cocks an eyebrow.

   

    “Just like that.” Acapulco holds a hand up. “That look, that look, yeah. Hold that. Now-- Don’t move!”

 

    Crosby doesn’t, even though it’s incredibly weird and invasive, having Acapulco come and move his arm for him, sliding the popsicle into his mouth. He holds up a hand again, running back to see what the angle is from the cell phone, adjusting slightly.

 

    “I need your eyes to do that thing they did when you called me a slut, you’ve lost that look-- you’re a really shitty model, dude, a good thing you have being like a mob dynasty to fall back on because having the looks alone doesn’t cut it. Just think slutty thoughts and, yeah, okay, take the picture.”

 

    He takes the picture, and… to be fair, Acapulco has a good eye for this.

 

    “You’re such an asshole.” Crosby says, but he sends the picture, grinning at the row of heart-eyed emojis he gets in return.

 

    “Bet your boyfriend’s glad you know a slut with a good eye.”

 

    “Yeah. Thanks. Not that I want tips on how to be a ho from my dad’s sugar baby but--”

 

    “But I am highly qualified.”

 

\---

 

12- The Wolf King

 

    The grill hasn’t gotten much use since… oh, probably since Tommy. Tommy did stuff like that, all spring and summer. Crosby couldn’t have picked up the cooking thing from him, he didn’t cook. He grilled, though.

 

    His picture is still in the office. Up over the bar. Oh, and he knows sometimes that Cros has nudged the door open and looked in to where it was. You don’t just keep your dead bodyguard’s picture on the wall ten years down the line, not out in the house, that would be weird. But over the bar in his office… well, Tommy died taking a bullet for him. He’s not a sentimental man, but the man took a bullet for him and it killed him.

 

    No.

 

    Tommy died in his arms after taking a bullet for him, yes. Nearly ten years before the Artemis would become a reality. But Tommy didn’t die from that bullet. A sucking chest wound, ugly, _drowning_ him in his own blood, he’d died from the neat one through his temple, because there was no way to save him, and the upside of being cold blooded was, he had been able to do that for him. To do the thing he owed him.

   

    Crosby doesn’t know that part.

 

    So Tommy’s owed a photo on the wall, too, in the office, over the bar. And the Wolf King doesn’t get to know his people very personally. He didn’t let them get too close to his son. Crosby’s going to have to learn to deal with losing people when he steps into his proper place in the organization, true, but… well, coming home from school to find dear old dad covered in blood, to get the news his favorite babysitter wouldn’t be around anymore… He was too soft for that.

 

    Anyway, Cros had wanted to dust off the grill that had been languishing on the patio all those years, so he’d told him to knock himself out and not blow the place up, and he’d installed himself on a patio chair with a pitcher of sangria.

 

    Acapulco is curled up in one of the patio chairs, a borrowed dress shirt hiding the bruises on his arms, and almost hiding the ones on his thighs, the shirt hanging open because even though it would be nice to keep the particulars of rough nights a little private, the boy loves to show off. He loves to see him show off, to a degree. There are things Crosby doesn’t need to see, but the edge of a hickey… eh, he’ll live, the rope burns are hidden, that’s the important thing.

 

    Where Crosby ever got a ‘kiss the cook’ apron, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t say anything about it-- in the kitchen, he might have. But the smell of the grill is nostalgic, and he thinks he could approve of this, could spend a few more summer evenings drinking on the patio and enjoying some red meat, and potentially watching Acapulco in the pool. He was hopeless and the opposite of graceful when it came to actually swimming, but he offered a nice eyeful anyway, if he was just going to float around. And truth be told, sometimes he just likes to look out at the pool from his office even when it’s empty, he just likes that it’s there, that it’s his. But outside, on the patio, it’s a little more relaxing than through the window.

 

    “I want mine well done.” Acapulco sidles over to the grill. Looks back over his shoulder and stretches, so that the shirt rides up enough to show off a couple of those bruises along the backs of his thighs. Winks.

 

    “It’ll be the right amount of done-ness.” Crosby groans. “Please trust me, I know what I’m doing with meat.”

 

    “Oh, I know what I’m doing with meat.” Acapulco snorts, reaching over to poke at Crosby’s chest. “Can I get mine well done if I kiss the cook?”

 

    “Fuck off, dude. Your lips have been on my dad.”

 

    Acapulco opens his mouth, then looks back over his shoulder again, and closes it. “Whatever, just make mine well done.”

 

    “It’ll be dry, asshole.”

 

    “I know how I like it!”

 

    “Play nice.” He says, and Acapulco trots back over to the chair next to his, to play nice, picking up his own glass of sangria and picking out pieces of fruit. Well, mostly to pout. “Honey, play nice.”

 

    “I always play nice.”

 

    “You never play nice.” He chuckles, reaching over to grab at Acapulco’s chin. Just firm enough to watch that little something in him go slack… “Behave.”

 

    “Yes, Daddy, I’ll be good.”

 

    He rolls his eyes and lets him go, and goes back to enjoying the aroma and the drink and the view of the backyard, the calm blue of the pool, and the hills beyond... and the relative quiet.

 

    Crosby brings him his dinner first, one plate already set aside, and one burger still on the grill. He eats a few bites while standing over it, before plating it and practically throwing it at Acapulco-- restraining himself only because he’s also been told to play nice, probably.

 

    “It’s well done.” He sneers. “And it’s going to be terrible.”

 

    Acapulco eats the way he always does, which is to say he shoves way too much into his mouth and then moans around it, which… is also how he does other things, so, no complaints.

 

    “No, it’s really good!” He says, after wolfing down half the damn burger. “Really!”

 

    Crosby makes a face at him, but also looks… pleased. Well, of course he does, he relies on people’s opinions too much.

 

    “We should do this more often.” Acapulco adds, and then, in unison, they both turn the exact same questioning look to him, and they both relax into matching smiles when he finally nods.

 

    “Sure. Good job, kiddo.” He says, and Crosby grins and goes back to eating. And out of the corner of his eye, he can see Acapulco’s next bid for attention brewing.

 


	5. Do You Really Think He Thinks About You When He's Out

13- Acapulco

 

    Wide shot on the poolhouse, zoom in, Acapulco, naked, kneeling by the bed where the Wolf King sits in shadow. Cut to a close shot, Acapulco in profile, snorting coke off of a raging boner. But like, in an arty way, not in a porn way. It’s all artsy, when he thinks about it like this, when he’s floating outside himself a little bit. Push in as the Wolf King pulls back on Acapulco’s hair, the camera catching the way his lashes flutter against his cheek, the camera capturing the way he wants this, and he does. He wants it so badly.

 

    The chuckle from off-screen, low and dark. Acapulco moans, on screen. The camera is almost always focused on him, and that’s how it should be. But sometimes, there are cuts, of course.

 

    Artistic cut to the calm of the pool, illuminated from below the water, against the dark of the night and the dark of the poolhouse. Cut to the lights far away in the distance. Cut back to Acapulco, that’s what the audience is here for, a big hand fisted in his hair pulling him down onto the Wolf King’s cock, and pan up the Wolf King’s torso to the look of pleasure on his face. He doesn’t make a lot of noise unless he’s talking dirty, but in that mental camera view, Acapulco sees the way his face might be twisting, the way he might react to being treated good like this.

 

    Cut to the big house. Dark and quiet. Cut to Acapulco being pulled back off of the Wolf King’s cock by that fist in his hair-- wide shot, everything in shadow, but the noise he makes magnified, that gasp and groan.

 

    Cut to Acapulco thrown down on the bed on his back, the grin on his face, the Wolf King’s perspective as he looms over him.

 

    Cut to Crosby in his room. Texting his boyfriend or whatever.

 

    Cut to Acapulco, real close up, and the look of ecstasy on his face as he wraps his legs around the Wolf King’s waist and he’s _full_ and it’s good. And the sounds, carnal, but still the shot is tasteful because this is a serious movie, not cheap and tawdry. Pull out, through the Wolf King to put him in frame.

 

    Cut to the Wolf King, wearing that grin that tells you exactly why he’s got that name. Cut to…

 

    He doesn’t know, back to himself. To both of them.

 

    Pan out, he’s cutting too much, pan out to take them in, the Wolf King’s pace steady, not fast enough, Acapulco begging. He reaches up, clings to the Wolf King’s shoulders, has his wrists pinned down to the bed, which is exactly what he wanted. Push in on his face, on his grin and the way his eyes light up, and you can tell by looking at him that he wants it to be brutal…

 

    Cut to Crosby texting his boyfriend, one hand under the covers.

   

    No, cut back to Acapulco, in fact, leave that on the cutting room floor, keep the camera where it belongs, on Acapulco getting his brains fucked out in a totally tasteful way. Maybe with music.

 

    Something brassy. Something seductive. And just stay on Acapulco’s face as he comes.

 

    Pull back as the Wolf King pulls out, as he rises from the bed, and the camera follows him across the poolhouse. He leaves the bathroom door open as he cleans up a little. He grabs his bathrobe from the hook on the door and tosses it down on the bed, and slips back into his pajama pants.

 

    Close on the Wolf King’s face as he smiles down at the bed.

 

    No. In the movie, in the movie it’s different. The smile reaches his eyes. It’s different, in the movie, he takes a breath, takes a beat, and everything’s soft and he opens his mouth and

   

WOLF KING

Don’t want you getting cold, honey

 

    Because in the movie it’s different, and the Wolf King knows Acapulco gets cold, and he doesn’t want him to. He gets cold every night but he gets colder on nights like this.

 

    And the camera cuts to Crosby again, in his bed in the big house, but he’s looking out the window and he’s lying on his side with his blankets pulled up over himself even though it’s summer, because he gets cold sometimes too, in the movie version. His window doesn’t face the poolhouse so… Acapulco can’t think why that should matter, anyway. He looks out his window one way and Acapulco looks out his window the other way, and then the Wolf King goes back to his room and looks out his window, facing the high row of cypress trees that keep the house hidden from any other estates… Acapulco hasn’t been into either bedroom except for the one time in the Wolf King’s, and he doesn’t remember it super well now, as he tries to frame the shot. He doesn’t remember how many pillows were on the bed or whether  there was a TV on the wall. He remembers there’s a treadmill, pointed at the window.

 

    He doesn’t know what Crosby’s room is like so he imagines his own, from back when he lived in a big house. The bed shoved in a corner and a desk against one wall and a closet, only Crosby keeps his neater than Acapulco’s ever was. Crosby must have different posters, but Acapulco still imagines the same sheets and blankets he still has in his crappy apartment.

 

    He just pictures his own posters, because he doesn’t want to think about what Crosby would like. That’s not important to the movie he’s crafting. It’s only important that everyone be staring out their window because that looks good and artistic and shows that…

 

    Something. Something important.

 

    Overhead shot of Acapulco, lying in his bed, clinging to the Wolf King’s bathrobe. He breathes in the scent. He closes his eyes. In the movie version, he falls asleep.

 

\---

 

14- The Wolf King

 

    “I said fuck off, creep!”

 

    Crosby’s voice, from out in the hallway, close enough to reverberate through the office door, to bother the perfect sanctuary of the Wolf King’s office.

 

    He can hear Acapulco’s voice, not the words, and Crosby again, and he pinches the bridge of his nose and rises from his desk. He opens the door, and there they are, fighting in the hall between Crosby’s room and the office.

 

    “Listen, you don’t know the first _thing_ about my life, you little lowlife punk, so whatever you _think_ you know about me, you stick it right up your ass, because you-” He shoves at Acapulco’s chest, not hard, just enough to punctuate the rant. “Know-” Another shove. “Nothing. You fucking little coke slut--”

 

    “Boys.”

 

    They both turn, sharp, wide-eyed, waiting to be punished.

 

    “Daddy’s working.”

 

    “Well he started it. Keep him out of my room--”

 

    “I didn’t _go_ in your room--”

 

    “And maybe like… watch how much coke you give him, because he’s out of control.”

 

    “I don’t need you to worry about how much coke I do. I’m not even high!” Acapulco snaps. “It’s not like you actually care about it being ‘bad’ for me, you just don’t like anyone to have a good time, you just-- Fuck, I was trying to be nice to you! And you’re such a dick!”

 

    He’s crying, which… well, there’s something aesthetically pleasing in it, the way his chest rises and falls, and his face goes red and his eyes are shining. When he looks so pleadingly back towards his… beloved protector, hoping that this time he’ll have the Wolf King on his side. And he has no idea what they’re fighting about this time, he can’t take sides exactly. What he needs is for both of them to feel as if they’ve been chosen, and for that, he needs to split them up.

 

    “Cros, wait in my office for me, okay? There’s a good boy.” He says, and he pats his shoulder, and slips an arm around Acapulco. “Let me put this one to bed, huh? Then we can talk.”

 

    “Yes, Sir.” Crosby nods-- oh he really does think he’s in trouble, well…

 

    That’s fine, too. Let him stir a little, it’ll only make it sweeter when he’s told he was in the right.

 

    He leads Acapulco out to the poolhouse, and sits him down on the edge of the bed, and when Acapulco looks up at him with his cheeks wet with tears, he gently wipes them away, smiling down at him as sweetly as he knows how.

 

    “Honey.” He tuts. “You know my baby boy is important to me.”

 

    “Which-- which one of us is-- is that?”

 

    “Well… I meant, uh, I meant Crosby. He’s just having a hard time, he’s not used to me dating someone seriously, you’ve been around a long time.”

 

    “I was trying to be nice!”

 

    “Oh, I know, I know you were.” He holds Acapulco’s chin in his hand. That gaze is fully adoring, the hurt vanishing. “You try so hard to make me happy, don’t you?”

 

    Acapulco reaches for his belt, and he has to grab his hand away.

 

    “Not now, Baby, I do have to go talk to my son. You take some time to yourself, okay? Just breathe, relax… I’ll put the stereo on for you, yeah? Don’t think about him if that’s going to upset you. Have a shower and a little nap? Don’t you deserve that? Some time to take care of you? Of course you do.” He coos, releasing Acapulco and going to the stereo, getting the oldies station on, the volume soft.

 

    “You have to go now?”

 

    “Well, don’t I need to go and tell him not to talk to you like that? But I’ll be back. When you’re feeling a little calmer. Then we can… have some fun, if you want. Don’t I always take good care of you?”

 

    Acapulco nods.

 

    “Good boy.” He returns to the bed once more, to run a hand through his hair, bending to give him a kiss on the forehead. “You two just give each other some time to cool off for now and I promise he’ll be nicer to you, honey, I’ll talk to him.”

 

    Acapulco managed, he returns to the office, where Crosby looks like he’s been sweating bullets.

 

    “You want a drink?” He offers. “Son, I’m sorry about him…”

 

    Crosby’s attention snaps to him, there’s a moment of wide-eyed disbelief that melts into happiness.

 

    “Well-- if you’re having one, sure.”

 

    “Usually do about this time in the evening.” He nods, pours two. Looks down at his own hands for a moment because when he looks straight ahead he hears Tommy saying ‘go easy on the kid’ and that’s just not the way the world works, is it? He can’t go easy on Crosby, Crosby’s too soft and he’s not going to make him softer. He doesn’t know who he owes that to. Himself, because a man’s son is a legacy he leaves on the world? Crosby, because he made him, after all, and Crosby didn’t ask to be made, and he could at least do him the service of preparing him for the world?

 

    Tommy, who looked at Cros the way Orian never could, from the very first moment he held him? And who isn’t here to keep him out of trouble anymore, so he has to harden him up, he has to make him into a man who can take care of himself.

 

    “I don’t know what he said, but… he’s, uh, sobering up out in the poolhouse, he won’t do it again.”

 

    Crosby’s red in the face, mumbles a thank you when he gets his drink, but… whatever the fight was about, he’s embarrassed now.

 

    “It’s nothing.” He says. “He was just… It’s nothing.”

 

    “Just joking around? Taking it a little too far? Well… He’s like that sometimes, but, I mean… he makes your old man happy. Can’t you put up with him a couple more days? For your dear old dad?”

 

    “Yeah, of course. Dad… does that guy really make you happy? I mean-- do you… You don’t-- _love_ him, right?”

 

    “Wasn’t aware I had to love someone to be happy.” He swirls his drink around in his glass. “I don’t do love, Cros. Not in my line of work. In our line of work. But you know that, right? You know there’s only really room for me, and you. Other people come and go, but they’re not _family_.”

 

    “Yeah, Dad. I know exactly what you mean.” He nods, eager. Eager to agree, eager to know he’ll always be on the inside.

 

    And he will be. Of course he will be. The Wolf King wasn’t a good father even when he thought of himself as Orian Franklin before any other name… He didn’t get those feelings a kid is supposed to make you feel.  But still, Crosby’s his son. A piece of his legacy. He just needs to help him… turn into the man he needs to be, to get by in their life, their line of work. He just needs to manage him until he’s ready.

 

    “He does make me happy, though, okay, kiddo? He makes your old man feel young.” He leans forward, his tone confidential, man-to-man, his hand landing warm and heavy on Crosby’s shoulder. “I know he’s a lot to deal with sometimes, I know. But you can deal with it. Can’t you, buddy? You can just avoid each other, then the summer will be over. I’ll drive you back to campus… and you’ll forget all about it. I told him, he needs to respect you in your house, and if he can’t do that, he needs to stay out of your way when you’re home.”

 

    “Yeah. You’ll drive me?”

 

    “Just you and me. We’ll pick up a burger on the way out. Move your stuff in. We don’t need anyone else for that, do we?”

 

    “No. Yeah, that’ll be good.” Crosby nods again, his smile bright.

 

\---

 

15- Crosby

 

    He doesn’t understand Acapulco at all-- and that’s all his dad ever calls him, ‘Acapulco’, when he’s not calling him honey or baby or whatever, and that’s all he ever calls himself, even. And sometimes it’s like he’ll be cool and they’ll get along for days at a time but then he pulls this shit again, leaning up in his bedroom doorway saying ‘Daddy’s busy, you wanna keep me entertained?’ and looking all stoned, and he says he isn’t, and…

 

    It wasn’t like when he’s all coked up, but it wasn’t normal, either. Just… glassy and wired and weird like he hasn’t been sleeping.

 

    He really hates him when he pulls that shit-- and when Crosby had told Acapulco to leave him alone because he didn’t want a fucking blowjob, Acapulco had…

 

    How he’d even known about last time, Crosby doesn’t know. But he’d thrown it in his face, made him feel sick and shameful. _If you didn’t want me why did you have to jack off last time_? He was quiet, he’d hated himself enough for getting turned on but he hadn’t made a sound. He’d stopped actively doing it when he’d heard Acapulco hollering outside his door, too, he’d held still, paranoid, but by then his dick was jerking around with a fucking mind of its own and all he could do was wait for Acapulco to give up and leave.

 

    Anyway, he’s disgusting and Crosby hates him.

 

    Which is why he’s not at all upset when Acapulco goes back to his apartment or hides out in the poolhouse or whatever it is he does instead of showing up for Crosby’s farewell dinner or to see him off on the day he heads back to campus.

 

    He and Johnny were able to request each other as roommates, which solves his biggest problems-- not having to deal with a roommate he might not get along with, and having to deal with the sex question. They’re both free to sleep with other people, anyway, but they can always get each other off. He knows Johnny won’t actually arrive until late that night, but that’s for the best, anyway, because he really doesn’t want to have to introduce his dad to any friend he’s having sex with. Or like… any of his law abiding friends, really.

 

    The move-in is good, anyway. They talk about stuff, like the car he’s been saving for on his own, out of whatever he’s saved from the money his dad sends, the money he didn’t use to go to Cancun, and more importantly, the tutoring job, which he didn’t need, but he’d wanted so badly to prove that he could at least… do part of this without his dad’s money.

 

    His dad had bought him his first car, when he was sixteen. It had been sensible and non-descript and safe, like his dad’s own personal-errands car, not like his cadre of for-business cars. The kind of car that didn’t scream ‘I’m a wealthy criminal come and mess with me’, basically-- but which could be tricked out to be pretty bulletproof, just in case. It had been stolen, his freshman year, outside an all-ages show at a club downtown, even though it was also made to not be stolen, with how un-flashy it was. He’d been the designated driver for his friends who were older or had fake IDs, too, which had sucked ass but at least he could afford to pour them all into a cab.

 

    He doesn’t know what happened to the man who stole the car, when his dad tracked him down, only been told ‘sorry, sport, we got bad news from your car thief, it was already scrapped for parts’. He had not asked to find out what happened to the car thief, but he suspects it was not pleasant. The idea made him uncomfortable but it also made him happy. He felt bad about being happy, sure, but… the idea that his dad had pursued revenge on his behalf was… something.

 

    Anyway, he’d said at the time he didn’t really need to replace it right away, and he hadn’t, but he can’t be without one forever, and the idea of paying for it himself, even if most of the money was money his dad sent him… he kind of thought the fiscal responsibility would make his dad proud.

 

    It didn’t _not_ make his dad proud, anyway.

 

    He spends his time to himself between his dad driving off and Johnny arriving with his sketchbook and music, but when Johnny gets in, he abandons both for a makeout session three months in the making. They both just about come in their pants, before hastily getting undressed, and then it’s just hands everywhere, and then things are easy again.

 

    “How was your summer?” Johnny asks. They’re both too tall to try and share the dorm bed without being an awkward tangle of limbs but they try anyway, just for a little while, before Johnny just slides down to the floor. He lies there and stretches his arm up so they can hold hands. “Since we talked?”

 

    “More of the same. Dad’s boy toy drives me nuts. I kind of hope he’s gone by the next time I visit home.”

 

    “Is that him?”

 

    “What?” Crosby pushes himself up, startled, but then he sees Johnny’s picked up his discarded sketchbook. “Oh. Yeah, I guess.”

   

    “Cute. Not my type, but cute.” He waggles his eyebrows up at Crosby. “You make him look really good, even if he drives you nuts.”

 

    “Yeah, well.” He blushes. “He’s basically a free live model, he hangs around the house in his underwear and sometimes he throws himself down on the couch and doesn’t move for a couple hours.”

 

    “Nice. At least you get something out of that incredibly awkward situation.”

 

    “Yeah, I really envy your whole… stable two-dad situation.”

 

    “Don’t say that. What if they get married and you wind up with a… step-twink?”

 

    “Don’t even say that. My dad doesn’t want to get married, anyway. He doesn’t… like, do that. After my mom or whatever. He doesn’t date, like I’m shocked this guy is still around. He’s… It’s weird.”

 

    “These are really good.” Johnny flips through. The basic pose studies are one thing, but then he gets to a page of faces and Crosby feels a creeping embarrassment. He doesn’t have a good reason for drawing Acapulco’s face. By now he could probably do it in his sleep, though.

 

    “Thanks.”

 


	6. I'll Tell You What I'm Thinking About

16- The Wolf King

 

    Acapulco has been… _working_.

 

    He’s been working a while, but now he shows… signs of ambition. Signs of pulling away. Not completely, of course. The Wolf King offers things he can’t get just anywhere, or at least, things he doesn’t believe he can. But he shows a new confidence in his dealings. He still stays over, still asks to stay over, but he seems more comfortable about the times he doesn’t. The uncertain, clinging thing who could easily be controlled is beginning to change.

 

    Can’t have that.

 

    No, he can’t have that.

 

    Normally, he’d simply cut him loose entirely and replace him with someone new. That’s what he’s always done whenever there’s been something to not like. But… well, he doesn’t like to say Acapulco is special or anything. But he’s different. He’s different in the way he doesn’t need money, though he appreciates little presents. He’s different in the way he seems to actively _want_ to be manipulated and controlled. He responds so readily, so eagerly to it.

 

    And the Wolf King needs to be needed. To occupy that position in someone’s life. To get to control. Why shouldn’t he keep around someone who likes him to do it?

 

    Still… Acapulco needs to remember that staying over is a privilege he can’t do without.

 

    Thanksgiving is a good opportunity for that. Acapulco tries to ask about his plans casually, but he’s so transparent…

 

    “Well… Thanksgiving’s normally just Crosby and me. Been a father-son day ever since he was a kid. Not something I normally invite someone to…” He drawls, watching Acapulco. How does he ever get by in his line of work with such an open face? Or-- oh, and there’s a nice thought-- is he just this defenseless for him alone?

 

    “I mean, I’ve been around a while, though-- and we know each other already! It’s not like I’m just a, a one night stand who’d be-- I can be good, I can get along. Just for a weekend.”

 

    “I don’t know… I mean I’d have to break it to Cros…”

 

    “I’ll apologize for the summer, even. I don’t want to spend Thanksgiving sitting alone in a restaurant.”

 

    “Well…” He smiles slowly, extending a hand, welcoming Acapulco to come and settle in his lap. “I mean I’ll ask Crosby if he minds. I’m sure we can work something out. If you’d be alone for the holidays and all… You’ve never been alone for a holiday, honey?”

 

    Acapulco shakes his head. Oh, so guileless… so wide-eyed. So delectably trusting.

 

    “No, I spent holidays at work, after my folks kicked me out. Work’s not alone.” He shrugs. “Last couple of years, though… guess the last couple years I’ve been alone. Nobody else really wants to, uh, schedule a deal on Thanksgiving, so.”

 

    “Well, that’s true.” He cups Acapulco’s chin. “And work’s not alone, maybe I should just have you come and work for me… I mean, if that’s…”

 

    He laughs a little, which is to be expected. He’s stopped considering the offer, he never considered it seriously enough, and it’s not… it’s not a problem, because he’d known Acapulco would laugh it off and bat his lashes.

 

    “Why work for you when I could do other things for you instead?” Acapulco winds an arm around him. “Huh? Don’t you want me to do something real special for you? Anything you want?”

 

    “Don’t you always give me everything I want?” He chuckles. “Give Daddy some sugar and we’ll talk about dinner later. But honey… look, you don’t have to bribe me when you want to come over. I just want to hear you _ask_ sometimes. Don’t you think that’s more fair? You just have to ask and if we can make it work, we will. You don’t have to do anything special for me you don’t already do. But you have to remember… it’s still special, you coming and staying over. I mean, if I feel like you don’t think I’m special, like our time isn’t special, well… it’s hard for me, isn’t it? I just want to, to feel appreciated.”

 

    Acapulco nods. “It is-- you are! And you know I don’t do this for anyone else! And-- and I do think it’s special, and I love being over here. Being, like… accessible to you?”

 

    “Mm, that’s a good boy.” He nods. “We’ll see, hm? Just… you remember to be sweet to me. When you are over here. Give me something pretty to look at when I’m tired of working… Be sweet to me about it, don’t make me feel like I’m just convenient, like I’m just _anybody_. You can do that, can’t you? Make an old man feel special?”

 

    “You’re not even that old.” Acapulco snorts, and presses himself in nice and close. “You don’t fuck like an old man.”

 

    “Always so charming.”

 

    “I like making you feel special. I mean, you are. And you do a lot for me. I just… Look, I know we’re a no-labels thing and we just have fun, but I have so much fun. And I wanna spend time with you.”

 

    “Well… I’ll make something work out.” He promises, because that really was the right answer. Gotta reward those right answers, or he might start giving wrong ones.

 

\---

 

17- Crosby

 

    Fucking Acapulco is going to be at Thanksgiving dinner. He can’t believe this. But Thanksgiving is Crosby’s time to shine, he makes everything. He makes _everything_ , better than any place that would make something to pick up. After they eat, whoever’s on detail at the house gets to pick over the food before the leftovers get put away, but the two of them eat first, and it’s been just the two of them since he was ten. But somehow Acapulco is special enough for Thanksgiving dinner?

 

    He’s not going to let it bother him. He’s not going to let it bother him because he’s the one making dinner, and they can fuck in the poolhouse while he cooks or whatever but once they all sit down to eat, it’s about the food, the food he made.

 

    He’s prepping for the casseroles and veg when Acapulco slips into the kitchen. The panties of the day are burgundy velvet and high-waisted and he hasn’t seen them before and he doesn’t want to see them again, or now, but they’re weirdly flattering.

 

    Ugh.

 

    “What do you want?”

 

    “Hey, Cros.” Acapulco shuffles closer, peering at everything all mise-en-place. “You want a hand or anything?”

   

    He narrows his eyes. Oh no, Acapulco is not getting his well-earned glory. “You told me you couldn’t cook for shit.”

 

    “I can follow orders. Just ask y-- I can like… do what you tell me. I’m trying to be nice.” He folds his arms and looks away. His hair’s pulled back into a ponytail, but some of it has come down and he fails to blow it out of his eyes.

 

    “Did my dad tell you to be nice?”

 

    “Yeah. He always does. Not my idea. I mean it’s my idea to… like, I don’t know. It just kind of sucks you’re cooking this whole thing all alone.”

 

    The Wolf King doesn’t take whole holidays off, that’s probably what it is. Dad’s in his office and Acapulco is sick of being alone. But… Crosby gets sick of being alone, too.

 

    “You can’t cook in your underwear.” He quickly un-knots his apron and slips it off-- and onto Acapulco. “I mean please leave them on because I don’t want your dick rubbing up on my apron, but like… you’re a disaster, dude.”

 

    Acapulco goes from stunned to pleased, as Crosby passes the apron strings around his back, and then back to the front to tie. Which Acapulco could do himself, but Crosby’s already holding them and passing them over would mean their hands would touch, maybe, which would be more weird. Maybe.

 

    “I’m using this to seduce your dad, just so you know.” Acapulco says. Because he’s a little shit. “That’s sexy-- undies and an apron. ‘Kiss the Cook’ and everything.”

 

    “No you’re not, I’m hanging it back up once you’re out of my kitchen. Put your hair back up and then wash your hands. Hot water, soap, twenty seconds.”

 

    “Wow, okay. You’re the boss, huh?” Acapulco fixes his hair, and then goes to the sink. “You gonna hover over my shoulder and count down for me?”

 

    “I really hope I can trust you to count twenty seconds.”

 

    “Oh, baby, I love it when you’re mean to me.”

 

    “No you don’t, you go crying to my dad.”

 

    “Yeah, but I love doing that, too.”

 

    “Fucking weirdo.” Crosby sighs. Acapulco just sticks his tongue out at him over his shoulder, and reaches for the soap. “And don’t call me ‘baby’, for like, any reason.”

 

    “What do I do?” He asks, when he’s done washing up, his hands dry but a ring of wet around each forearm.

 

    “Green bean casserole-- I’ll handle getting it in the oven because the timing and placement is important with all these sides. So when you have it finished, don’t do anything else, just wait for me. Everything lined up over by that glass casserole dish? Okay don’t touch the onions yet, but just mix everything else together, like, directly in the dish. The cans go in, the milk is measured up, and then you add in those tiny pinch bowls. Onions on top--”

 

    “I know what a green bean casserole looks like, I know where the onions go. Um… so it’s really that easy, huh? I always thought casseroles were, like… hard.”

 

    “No, dude, casseroles are super easy.” Crosby laughs. “That’s the easiest one, but they’re all easy. You could probably do it on your own sometime, recipe’s right there on the can. But I need to time all the ovens today so like…”

 

    “Right. Yeah, that’s probably super complicated.” Acapulco nods, getting everything stirred. “So what’s that one?”

 

    “Broccoli.”

 

    “... You do brussels sprouts?”

 

    “Yeah. Green beans, broccoli, brussels sprouts, glazed carrots, creamed corn…”

 

    “Holy shit dude.”

 

    “Well, it’s Thanksgiving.” Crosby shrugs, smiling a little. “And like… all Dad’s guys need to eat, anyone who’s over at the house has to eat, even if they don’t eat with us. Plus like… leftovers. Anyway, that’s just the vegetables, like… there’s also stuffing and potatoes and rolls and, I mean, the actual turkey. Cranberry sauce just comes out of a can and the rolls are pre-made… and the pumpkin pie just comes from the store because it doesn’t make a difference if that’s homemade--”

 

    “You do this all by yourself?”

   

    “I like doing it.”

 

    “It sounds super hard.”

 

    “Nah. Not now, anyway. When I started out it wasn’t like this, but I’ve just… I add more when I get the hang of everything? Like at first it was… like, that… fuckin’ stuffing out of a box? And store bought rolls, like not even take-and-bake, like just cold? And green beans and broccoli and like… Like when I was a kid my mom would take me for Thanksgiving. And my sisters would visit in the summer back then, but like… I dunno. When I was a little older I guess I just, I think I said I just wanted to stay with Dad. And Mom never really liked the… changing stuff up, anyway. And we went to a restaurant. And then I started learning to cook and yeah. When I was fifteen I was making Thanksgiving dinner, not the whole turkey but like, yeah.”

 

    “He’s really fucking lucky to have you.”

 

    Crosby doesn’t know what to say to that. He focuses on getting his sides dealt with-- and he gives Acapulco a few other jobs, cleaning up along the way and doing little tasks that would be difficult to mess up. He teaches him some knife skills, because Acapulco’s are appalling and he’s going to lop something off if he doesn’t learn, but he’s sober enough to trust with a knife.

 

    Acapulco is glued to his hip when he glazes the carrots that they’d just sliced, watching avidly, and he’s too short to hop up on the counter to sit there-- thankfully-- but he watches everything else, too, sometimes chilling in the breakfast nook with the radio there and craning his neck to see what Crosby does with all the dishes.

 

    When Crosby brings the turkey out of the oven, Acapulco comes over to watch, leaning on the island a moment.

 

    “Don’t touch. It has to rest.”

 

    “Yeah I think that’s something you and the turkey probably have in common about now.” He laughs. He’s not half as funny as he thinks he is most of the time… but in moments like this, he’s kind of cute.

 

    Not cute, Crosby amends. Gross and weird and the worst. But not always.

 

    Acapulco starts fumbling with the apron strings, tugging uselessly at the wrong end of one, before finally getting the thing untied, and Crosby cocks his head to one side.

 

    “You’re not gonna keep wearing it to be sexy?”

 

    “Nah. Need a short frilly one for that, anyway. And I get my kisses for free. You’re the cook, I just… like, stirred some canned shit together and cut up some carrots. Ate some of ‘em when you weren’t looking.”

 

    “I saw you eating the carrots, dude.” Crosby laughs. Acapulco gets the apron off, turning it around and holding it up. “What?”

 

    “Bend down, asshole, if you want your apron back on.”

   

    Crosby laughs and takes it from him. “I actually don’t need it now that we’re done cooking. But I do need to go change my shirt before I get the table set. For some reason I got carrot glaze all over it.”

 

    “Well, I mean, you’re welcome. You’re welcome for all the help.” Acapulco says, dropping down onto the bench around the breakfast table in the nook.

 

    Crosby flips him off, but… in a friendlier way than usual, on his way out of the kitchen. When he gets back, in a nice shirt, Acapulco is setting the table.

 

    “Get off your feet, man.” He shakes his head, and so Crosby does, for a minute. Just until all the flatware and dishes are out, and then he gets up to start bringing out the food. The formal dining room table holds everything, but they’ll all have to get up and walk around to the far end for most stuff. But that’s how it always is. Once they started having lots of sides and stuff, it’s just sort of a buffet deal that they sit at one end of.

 

    “Good work, kiddo.” His dad greets, ambling into the room and handing Acapulco a shirt. “Honey, try and make this, uh, a semi-formal event, I know I don’t ask you to put something on very often, but it’s Thanksgiving. Crosby works so hard to do… all this. It’s his… it’s his day.”

 

    Acapulco actually seems happy to shrug into it. Well, even in LA, November’s not the best month to walk around in nothing but a pair of panties all day.

 

    “Actually, Dad--” Crosby starts, but Acapulco interrupts him.

 

    “Yeah, looks like a lot of work. But I mean, me, I can make cereal and that’s about it.”

 

    He shoots Crosby a little look, and Crosby just focuses on serving out mashed potatoes.

 

    “Honey, I know, don’t interrupt. What’s that, Cros?”

 

    “Actually, this year was pretty easy.” He blushes. “It’s the same as last year, so…”

 

    From there, it goes as usual. Dad carves the turkey, there’s a little surface talk of gratitude and thankfulness and whatnot, but they’re not the kind of people who get soppy about that shit. The vegetables are down at the end, and Crosby takes both his plate and his dad’s so that he can serve them both the usual amounts of the usual things,

 

    “You want anything else from this side of the table?” Crosby asks Acapulco, once he’s returned the first two filled plates to their places. “Green beans?”

 

    “Are they good?”

 

    “Green bean casserole, dude, it’s pretty impossible to fuck it up.”

 

    It’s the worst one, he privately thinks. He doesn’t like canned green beans, but the casserole isn’t the same with fresh and it’s more work, and he thinks the cream of mushroom soup is gross anyway, he just makes it for his dad. It feels weird giving up that one, since as distasteful as it is to him, it’s the one that he knows his dad likes the most… He wouldn’t have let Acapulco take it if it wasn’t both the grossest and the easiest to make, but Acapulco had passed on the chance to reap the praise.

 

    He’d helped himself to about two bites worth, squeezed in with everything else on his plate. He can’t pretend he loves it, but he’s been pretending his whole life he doesn’t hate it.

 

    Acapulco is as verbal with his praise as ever. Or moreso-- he’s always appreciative even when they’ve been fighting, he’ll still say dinner’s good. Even if he mostly just moans a lot and takes his time licking his spoon because he’s the worst. But he pauses to praise everything individually-- sometimes only after he’s inhaled all of it. His reaction to the green bean casserole is more surprise than praise, isn’t aimed at Crosby so much-- his exact words are ‘holy shit this is really edible’, which gets him a stifled laugh and a disapproving look.

 

\---

 

18- Acapulco

 

    It’s a relief no one’s into football. After dinner, he’s prepared to suffer through it while the Wolf King’s men pick over the table. To watch father and son bond over the fucking game or whatever. Crosby’s got all those sports trophies and shit, why wouldn’t they be into that? He’s never been around for Thanksgiving before.

 

    Instead, the Wolf King goes to his favorite chair and puts his feet up, hands folded across his midsection.

 

    “Wake me for pie.” He says, and then he tips his head back and manages to actually sleep. Like, right away. Which is so weird to Acapulco, who can’t sleep, ever. But then, the Wolf King is surrounded by people whose job it is to keep him safe, so why not?

 

    Crosby just kind of smiles and finds Charlie Brown on TV. Acapulco lies on the sofa, his legs dangling over the other end, his head a fair distance from Crosby’s thigh. Not close enough to be complained about by a long shot, even if he is taking up much more couch. But Crosby usually sits like a normal person somehow.

 

    “So this is what it’s like?”

 

    Crosby looks down at him, with this… this face, like Acapulco is weird and like he amuses him, but… not in an asshole way? Like it doesn’t make him feel angry or defensive… He’s been laughed at a lot, his whole life, oh, short guy with a short fuse, and there’s stuff he doesn’t want Crosby laughing at him about, but this isn’t really like that. Like, Crosby’s not laughing.

 

    “Yeah. Basically. Sometimes he drags the chair over or if the weather’s really nice, just goes out on the patio. Looks out at the pool for a while before falling asleep. Sometimes I take a nap, too. Although he snores sometimes, so it’s not easy if you’re thinking of getting one in.”

 

    “Me? I never sleep.” He scoffs.

 

    He turns his head to watch Charlie Brown, and somewhere along the way, the massive amount of food and the familiarity of the cartoon knocks him out. When he wakes up, Crosby’s dozing and something else is on, some crappy old movie. And the Wolf King does snore, but it’s not bad. Crosby doesn’t much. Just kind of… snuffles a little sometimes. There’s a blanket over Acapulco’s bare legs.

 

    In the movie version of his life, the snoring is why the Wolf King doesn’t sleep with him after. In the movie, the Wolf King woke up and gave him the blanket. He thinks it was probably Crosby, even though they mostly hate each other. He doesn’t really need to live in the movie version of his life right now.

 

    Well, he doesn’t really. He’s used to hating people. He thinks Crosby is the closest thing he has to a friend. A friend who mostly hates him, but like, that’s every friend he’s ever had.

 

    He grabs one of the little decorative pillows and wedges it between Crosby’s head and shoulder, because looking at the angle his neck is at is killing him here, and somehow that doesn’t wake him. How can these people sleep so well?

 

    He curls back up in his own spot, as much of himself under the too-small throw blanket as possible. He’s usually not cold during the days, the heat in the house is usually fine, but it feels nice to be under it. He’s cold at night, most nights. But he’s got plenty to cover up with in the poolhouse, and it’s not so bad. He’s not so aware during the day, maybe he is cold sometimes and he’s doing shit so he doesn’t notice it. He doesn’t think he is cold without the blanket, but he feels warm with it. He doesn’t doze off again, even though the movie on TV is abysmal and the cinematography’s not for shit and he can’t follow the plot. Nothing’s happening except some guy with a gun is on the world’s slowest manhunt after some other guy, but he slept through why.

 

    Crosby wakes up, eventually-- wakes up when a gun goes off on the TV, even though it doesn’t sound like a real one. He’s briefly confused by the pillow, but then he just shoves it back into its place on the couch with a smile.

 

    “Think you could eat?” He asks, checking the time. It’s late-- it’s dark out. Raining, softly. Just starting to.

 

    He wonders if Crosby has a movie version of his life. If he does, then movie Crosby probably got the pillow from the Wolf King, too. In their movie life, the Wolf King is a caring father and an attentive lover when he’s not actively mid-fuck. In the Wolf King’s inner movie life, Acapulco doesn’t even know if he exists. If he does, he’s not in any scenes outside the bedroom. Which is okay, because he exists in the real world, and he’s being a little unfair because sometimes he gets attention paid to him just because he’s there. Any time Daddy isn’t busy, and all that. And it’s not just fucking, he gets held sometimes and talked to. But that doesn’t change that he’s temporary.

 

    “I could eat.” He nods. He can pretty much always eat. He never thought about it much except that he liked some things a lot and other things just fine, until he got kicked out of the house, and then for two years straight he ate every chance he got and he appreciated the hell out of all of it, and it was good food, it was one of those restaurants that’s a front for serious crime and he ate as often as they’d feed him, when he wasn’t working. And when he was. He was just fucking grateful not to have to figure out how to feed himself.

 

    He misses it, but at least he wasn’t on his own when that ride ended. Worse people than the Wolf King could have found him, he knows that. He doesn’t pretend he’s special, beyond being kinky and willing to please, and retaining his looks-- he doesn’t pretend it’s love, because it’s not love on his end, either. It is what it is. But it means he still doesn’t have to figure out how to feed himself.

 

    “Dad, pie.” Crosby says, and somehow that’s all it takes, to get the man to wake up with a snort and a brief mildly-startled look. Like he was just anyone’s dad falling asleep with his feet up in his favorite chair on Thanksgiving, and not the mob boss who owned like half the city.

 

    “Lead on, kiddo.” He nods, levering himself up.

 


	7. Now the Memories Are on the Wall

19- The Wolf King

 

    Thanksgiving tradition number… whatever. One more drink. The last one, maybe. Midnight, and it’s raining, and from his office, the Wolf King can see the way it gathers on the pool cover and reflects the moonlight.

 

    He likes rain. It’s a novelty he doesn’t get for much of the year, after all. He likes the rain, and he likes having a view of the pool, though he rarely uses it. Never when anyone else is at the house, never during the day. Maybe some of the people who work for him know when he does, but they know not to talk about the boss’ habits.

 

    The first time was in November. He was married. Crosby wasn’t even a twinkle in his wife’s eye. She’d find out, and she’d put up with it for a while, and then she’d leave. But all that was… beyond what he could think about then.

 

    Six foot one, broad-chested, crack shot with a gun. Cocky but ever eager to please. Called him ‘Mister F’, at first. Which had been cute, or… or he had been young and easy and Tommy had been cute. Tommy had sought permission to use the pool sometimes and Tommy had caught him looking, when he did.

 

    They didn’t have anniversaries. That just wasn’t a luxury they were afforded. He doesn’t remember the date, anyway. He remembers wide, dark eyes looking up into his, he remembers slipping out to the poolhouse and then going back to his wife.

 

    He remembers Tommy driving them home from the hospital when Crosby was born, asking the exhausted Missus if he could hold him, and she hadn’t cared, there were two jealous little girls clamoring for her attention and labor had been hell, of course she blamed her husband, and of course he accepted that blame, even though he hadn’t wanted a fucking kid in the first place, let alone three of them. He’d have been happy with separate bedrooms after the first, but she hadn’t figured it out yet and he wasn’t going to push her to.

 

    Tommy had been the one to remark on how much Crosby looked like him, which… was that ever true? He never saw the resemblance himself. He trusted Crosby was his, because at that point no man was going to dare touch his wife if he was in the picture. Because Crosby grew up looking enough like other men in the Franklin family, but did they look alike? One of the girls might not be his, but he’s not a hypocrite-- he sent money just the same, put them both through college… If he was allowed his fun, so was his wife.

 

    Tommy had seen the resemblance, anyway. That might have been what tipped the old girl off to the affair. Didn’t matter. They tried for a bit and then they called it quits, she took the girls. Maybe she and Tommy saw the same thing he didn’t, maybe she didn’t want a reminder of his face. Although one of the girls looks as much like him as Crosby, he thinks, so maybe it was something else. Maybe it wasn’t because Cros looked like him, maybe it was because Cros looked like the one who never made it. Maybe it was because neither of them could love that baby boy the way Tommy did and she knew it, too.

 

    Anyway, Tommy had been happy, and so he had been happy. And they didn’t have anniversaries, but Crosby went to his mom’s every Thanksgiving and so they had a weekend all their own. Same month, and that was close enough.

 

    It was fall, too, when he was robbed of that. Photograph in one hand and drink in the other, he stands at his office window and he watches the rainwater slowly fill the pool cover. _Robbed_ , of years he could have had. Of the best father his son could have had, and the best parts of the one he was going to be left with.

 

    Tracking down the men who’d ambushed them had been easy. He had already promised Cros the problem was resolved, but he hadn’t lied to him, no. Sobbing little boy climbed into his lap with questions he couldn’t answer because he had been so outside himself since it happened, all he could do was say a bad man had killed Uncle Tommy. And then he’d said ‘don’t worry, because Daddy killed that man, Daddy took care of it’, and… hadn’t he? He’d been dissociating pretty hard.

 

    It felt like the truth at the time, but he still had revenge to think about. And it wasn’t enough to kill the other men who’d pulled the trigger-- one of whom, and no knowing which, had hit home in such an ugly way. Whoever ordered the hit still had to pay.

 

    The two gunmen had come to only to find themselves tied up. Out at Surfrider, middle of the night. They’d caught on fast.

 

    ‘So, who’s going to tell me the name of your boss?’, he’d asked, and one of them had jumped to do just that. The look on his face when the Wolf King had only smiled and said ‘I never told you I would let you go, I only asked who was going to tell me’, that had been good. But it hadn’t been the best part. The begging and the bargaining was good, too. Still not the best part. The crying, oh, that had been close. They went from begging for their lives to begging for a bullet, but the answer remained the same.

 

    They were there for _hours_. He had a light on them so he could watch and his men had a perimeter set up, but Surfrider at night… hell, even during the day, it’s not exactly nice. But at night, you could be out there for hours on a wooden platform past the end of the pier with a battery powered emergency floodlight and no one would bother you. The junkies weren’t exactly going to call the cops.

 

    Isak Dinesen had once said that the cure for anything is salt water. The gunmen hadn’t appreciated the quote. He’d appreciated it enough for all three of them. And then, he was cured of one more problem.

 

    When he did the same to their boss, he’d had a lawn chair and popcorn. He had no appetite, but it did add something to the psychological torture of it.

 

    He’d had no appetite for years after, but he’d eaten. He’d done a lot of things he had no appetites for, until they returned with time. Until his body learned to live without a heart, a harder man, and to act accordingly and desire things.

 

    And now it does, and now he does. He eats because he wants to and enjoys it, he has sex for the same reasons, he does as he pleases.

 

    It pleases him to watch their pool from the window of his office, with the photograph in one hand and drink in the other. To poke at an old wound and see if the scar still aches this year. And it pleases him, however perversely, to discover it still does.

  


\---

 

20- Acapulco

 

    Crosby’s the one who catches him slinking into the kitchen in the middle of the night-- Crosby’s standing over the sink with a sandwich that seems to be made up of every kind of leftover.

 

    “You’re wet.” He says.

 

    “It’s raining. For fuckin’ once, right?”

 

    “Hang on. Don’t touch my sandwich.” Crosby grabs a plate, and then leaves him, standing there in a damp robe, with wet hair.

 

    He considers touching the sandwich, even just poking it once to be able to say he did, but he doesn’t. When Crosby comes back, he’s carrying a towel and a blue sweatshirt.

 

    “You really are a disaster.” He sighs. Which ought to be mean, but it’s not. He hands over the towel first, and demands the robe. The laundry room is off of the kitchen, far enough from the wing with the bedrooms-- at least, the good bedrooms, the family bedrooms-- and Crosby ducks in to throw the robe in the dryer.

 

    Once Acapulco is dry, Crosby hands the sweatshirt over. It’s a hoodie. A _UCLA_ hoodie. Also it’s huge on him when he shrugs into it, and he feels warmer than he thinks he’s been in years.

 

    “Just, like… send it to the laundry later, okay?” Crosby picks up his sandwich. “What?”

 

    “Nothing. Just… That’s a really good school. For like… for movies.”

 

    “Yeah, I guess. I just study business, I wouldn’t know.”

 

    “You don’t even, like, take a film course for fun?”

 

    “No. I take some art classes but like… nah.”

 

    “Shit, if I was at UCLA I wouldn’t do anything else. Guess if my old man sent me to college I wouldn’t have, like… become a criminal. Or maybe I would’ve. Wouldn’t have been running guns and shit like I was after I got kicked out but like… anything can happen. Could’ve gone to college and met a cute guy with mob ties anyway.” He bites his lip, sidling past Crosby to get to the fridge and dig out a tupperware container of casserole. “Ask him to finance my fuckin’... student films. But I wasn’t, uh… ‘college material’. Wasn’t any kind of material, except for what I wound up doing.”

 

    Crosby just nods, making a non-committal noise around his bite of sandwich. For a while, they both just eat, leaning against the countertops, Acapulco using the plate Crosby was no longer bothering with for his casserole and not bothering to heat it up.

 

    “Hey… look, I don’t-- I don’t get it, okay?” He says at last, before Crosby can leave the room now that he’s done eating. “Why you’re nice sometimes and why you let me, like… borrow your sweatshirt and shit and you don’t want anything from me.”

 

    “What?”

 

    “Like-- you do something nice, like you’re cool sometimes and you’ll make me food and like… do nice stuff, but when I try to like, pay you back for it, you just get mad at me.”

 

    “What do you mean pay m--” Crosby starts, and then his jaw just drops. He shakes his head.

 

    “It’s okay, I like doing it. Or is it the, like, your dad thing? Which, okay, that’s fair, but then why be nice sometimes in the first place if you don’t like me and you don’t want shit from me?”

 

    “I’m just nice sometimes to-- to be nice. I don’t know. Dude, fuck… you can’t be telling me right now, at fucking three in the morning, that no one’s ever nice to you unless you suck his dick, I can’t deal with that right now.”

 

    “Well most people just aren’t nice to me. Or if they are it’s ‘cause they work for someone and I’m someone. But yeah, I guess mostly it’s the dick-sucking thing. Or other favors, like… there’s guys who just want stuff from me ‘cause I’m coming up in the game and I’m worth buttering up some of the time. My old boss was nice and he looked out for me but like, I had to do a shit load of dangerous stuff for him so I earned it.”

 

    “Well… when I do nice stuff for you, it’s because we’re in the same house and… maybe it’s easier than fighting sometimes. And you aren’t always the worst. Okay? Is that seriously why you’ve been coming onto me all this time? You think I’ve been trying to get you to suck my dick through basic human decency?”

 

    “Well, like, it’s been confusing me. Like I think you must want it and then you get mad at me. I mean that one time I brought it up kind of to be an asshole, but the other times it was because it seemed like you wanted it.”

 

    “Okay, well… next time you feel confused, like… I don’t know. Try to remember that I’m not trying to get you to suck my dick. And if you’re really, really confused, ask me if I want something from you. Holy shit, dude, I can’t… Just, like-- I mean, no offense, but… I don’t do that. I’m not-- I’m not like that. About favors.”

 

    “I’m gonna be real honest, man, that’s kind of hot.”

 

    “Eat your damn casserole and go to bed.” Crosby groans, leaving the kitchen.

 

\---

 

21- Crosby

 

    His dad never dances, but Acapulco asks, every now and then. Always pacified by ‘why don’t you dance and I’ll watch’, which… knowing Acapulco, is probably what he wanted in the first place. He likes attention.

 

    Sometimes Crosby can just tune it out. Not all of the routines are filthy, and most of them don’t actually involve swinging into his dad’s lap, which… gross. He can just focus on the TV or a book or something. He has to leave the room for Acapulco’s ‘I Touch Myself’ routine, but it’s not all unbearable.

 

    When it’s just a little sinuous motion and the sway of his hips, that’s usually pretty easy to ignore. Acapulco is dancing around the living room to ‘Come a Little Bit Closer’, and he might as well not be there at all. Crosby is working his way through a novel his dad had called a stirring exploration of hubris, though he keeps getting stuck in a heavy bit a third of the way in.

 

    When he makes the mistake of looking up, Acapulco is looking right at him.

 

    Which is only because he’s got to do his whole… ass-shaking thing. Well, swaying, but still, he’s under the impression that it’s his best side, so that’s why he has his back to his intended audience, except when Crosby puts the book down their eyes meet and Acapulco is mouthing the words, and he really hopes that the guy’s ass is attractive _enough_ to hold his dad’s attention because he doesn’t want to have any kind of a conversation about why he’s watching this.

 

    “I need to go pack.” He announces, getting to his feet-- his dad waves him off, attention still very much on Acapulco, who does a slow turn back.

 

    Crosby makes his second mistake from the hallway, turning back to see exactly how good Acapulco’s ass looks, half hanging out of the snug panties of the day, and it’s more than he needed to see, more than he usually sees, and more than he should be seeing.

 

    He goes back to his room, and doesn’t get a lot of packing done.

 


	8. Couldn't Look You in the Eye

22- Acapulco

 

    He wrangles himself into a stay over Christmas-- a holiday none of them celebrate, but enough of the world does that it makes a person feel like crap for being alone. Last couple of years he’d pick up take out to avoid the knock at the door, and because he didn’t want to see his parents at the restaurant, not missing him.

 

    They could be in New York, or they could be in Orange. He doesn’t know. He hasn’t known since they kicked him out which place they’ve stayed in when. He just knows if he walked into the restaurant they always went to here and got himself a table alone and saw them laughing and having a good time, he’d flip.

 

    He buys gifts. Not anything fancy, because he’d been told and he gets it. There’s not much point in fancy gifts for someone who’s already rich.

 

    Crosby pulls up in his own car, when his winter break starts, and his first day of winter break is the arbitrary secular gift day. Acapulco fully expects he’s getting sexy underwear from the Wolf King, since… that’s what he tends to get whenever there’s any reason to give him anything.

 

    He likes the underwear and all, but he’s more excited to give, what with how he’d put a little thought into it. Even if it’s just basic little tokens, he’d put some thought into it. Dug through the stacks at Amoeba Records for anything by the Beach Boys and gotten it framed because he’s been around long enough to have an idea of the Wolf King’s tastes. What station he keeps the radio tuned to and what he bobs his head along with and the couple things that have him half singing along.

 

    It’s well-received, which feels good. Which is to be expected, he’d wanted it to be. He hands over Crosby’s present and is utterly unprepared for the high he gets when Crosby opens it. It’s just art stuff, because he’d been told nothing really fancy, and he’d basically just asked someone working in the store what to buy for someone who spent a lot of time drawing. But Crosby looks at him like he’d gone all out for it. And it’s not cheap stuff, but it’s not… it’s not that much.

 

    Crosby gives him a book about movies-- a really good looking one, about film in the early seventies, and he’s not prepared for how that makes him feel, either.

 

    The Wolf King gives him a silk robe, which is nice-- it’s really nice, he loves it. It means he doesn’t have to borrow one, he guesses, or that he can wear it whenever. There’s a whisper in his ear about something else waiting in the poolhouse for him, which… well, that’s nice, too. He doesn’t have weird, complicated feelings about that, he knows exactly how he feels about that.

 

\---

 

23- The Wolf King

 

    Acapulco is an enticing enough sight… he really is. Not just the usual silk shorts, but a full get-up, stockings and a garter belt and… it’s all very attractive.

 

    And he’s appreciative, which is so nice, because really, if he wasn’t going to be appreciative, what would be the point? He’s said and done all the right things, made a few jokes about mistletoe, some of those rather off-color, but what else could one expect from him?

 

    It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the view inside the poolhouse, it’s just that tonight, the hills beyond have his attention. In the dark, with just a half moon, they seem to take on new shapes, like sleeping beasts, and on their backs, there are other mansions, glittering with lights, moreso than usual.

 

    With the lights out, he sees the hills beyond the glass and not just their reflections. He can grab hold of Acapulco’s hips, slam into him, but they’re not here, they’re a part of the night. A part of the night, and he doesn’t have to think about the place he’s allowed Acapulco that the others haven’t been allowed, the way it breaks his own rules to do so. At first he had told himself he could break that rule because he wasn’t doing so out of any kind of feelings. Sometimes he’s less sure.

 

    He’s sure it’s not a feelings thing. It’s a power thing, and Acapulco is so obliging with power. And it’s a sex thing. Acapulco is very obliging with that as well. Acapulco craves approval now and then but never asks him for love. He’s needy in all the right ways but he isn’t messy, he isn’t emotional about what they have. No, the problem isn’t that they’re carrying on after so long, the problem is that no one was supposed to have the access to the poolhouse that Acapulco has, no one was supposed to sleep there, stay there… not regularly. The problem is that he was never supposed to set him up like this, in his territory. He could use the poolhouse to fuck the boys that worked for him and they’d go back to one of the rooms set aside for his men to live on the property in. The poolhouse remained unchanged.

 

    Now there are things which are not his. Clothes on the floor here, magazines strewn there, things he didn’t bring in. Things he doesn’t want to notice.

 

    Things that make it Different, that break the illusion that time in the poolhouse had stopped when he had. Things that interrupt that casual poking of old wounds whenever he takes a new lover in this bed, where everything is the same as it ever was. Or used to be.

 

    Sometimes, when he’s rough with Acapulco, he has his own secret reasons. Acapulco begs enough for it, anyway, enough that even if he were the type of man who would feel guilty, he wouldn’t for this. He doesn’t need to know that it’s a punishment as much as a reward, for daring to make the space he’d been allowed to sleep his own in any little way. He doesn’t belong there, but where else is he going to put him? It’s too late to change the game so drastically, he knows that. If he pushes Acapulco out, Acapulco rebels… and he doesn’t just lose a damn fine fuck, he loses an up and coming arms dealer who he can manipulate into deals no one else would cut him, no matter the hold he may have on the city. Right now, as much as he may have once resented Acapulco’s keeping his business to himself, well… it’s valuable. Would he rather own Acapulco’s assets? Of course. But the second best thing is to have a hold on the man himself. That’s going to come with all kinds of new perks as he expands his interests.

 

    He’ll just have to trade his continued control over the poolhouse for his continued control over the man living in it…

 

\---

  


24- Crosby

 

    “So, do I get to see what you’re drawing?” Acapulco asks, and Crosby nearly jumps out of his skin. He’d slam the new sketchbook closed if he wasn’t worried about smudging the soft pencil.

 

    “My work is kind of private. I mean it’s not--” He glances away. “Later, okay? I’ll find something that’s not embarrassing.”

 

    “How embarrassing can it be? Like I can draw shit?” Acapulco snorts. “If it’s not a stick figure, I’m impressed already.”

 

    “Later.” He says, and Acapulco pouts a little for a half a second, but then he loses himself in watching the TV, wrapped in his new robe.

 

    He’d been drawing him again, just from memory, when he’d come into the room. It’s the same drawing he’s done a hundred times since Thanksgiving. Acapulco, hips canted to one side, arms stretched lazily upwards, head turned to the side but his eyes burning forward towards the viewer. His professor wants to put it in the spring show, if he’d just call any one of them finished. Called it provocative and sensual and… well, a lot of things. And maybe it would be okay, putting it in the show, because his dad won’t go to it, won’t ever see this hanging up on a gallery wall, a coy and beckoning long-haired boy titled ‘Acapulco’...

 

    Acapulco doesn’t peek in his sketchbooks, apparently knows where to draw the line, and so he shows him some still life studies and one messy, awkward attempt at a wolf. It’s embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as the pages Acapulco’s face fills.

 

    Acapulco doesn’t peek in his sketchbooks, but he comes back into the living room one day to find his dad doing just that, and ice grips his heart.

 

    “Dad! Hey--”

 

    “Cros, did you do these? Well, no, of course, I mean, of course you did… These are _good_.”

 

    “They-- Yeah?” The vise in his chest relaxes. Why shouldn’t he draw Acapulco, when he hung around basically just posing all the time? Why should it be a shameful secret, when he draws live models all the time in class, wearing less than Acapulco does?

 

    “Yeah, yeah.” He nods, turning a page. “I don’t know art, but I know what I like.”

 

    “Supposed to draw from life for class and all, so… I mean, like, he’s always lying around here and stuff. Don’t want to get rusty over break. Um, my-- my professor was asking me to submit one of my pieces for a show.”

 

    “You do that.” His dad nods, closing the sketchbook and setting it down. “I wouldn’t mind getting one of those. Put that up somewhere…”

 

    “Yeah, sure! I mean-- well, if I’m not too late to put the, the big one in the show, you can have it after, or-- like, I dunno, anything. Anything you want.”

 

    His dad heads back towards his office, but he pauses halfway down the hall. “Hey, Cros?”

 

    “Yeah, Dad?”

 

    “You work from photographs, too?”

 

    “Yeah. I can, yeah.”

 

    He waits for something else, but all he gets in response is a curt nod.

 

    The next day, though, there’s a battered old photo album out on the coffee table.


	9. Well Every Day My Confusion Grows

25- Crosby

 

    The next time Acapulco asks what he’s working on, Crosby shows him-- though he doesn’t show him the photograph he’d been working from. It’s the only baby picture he thinks he has. He knows it’s him and not one of his sisters from the date written on the back. He knows his dad took the picture because Uncle Tommy is the one holding him.

 

    “Your brain just like… comes up with this, or it’s like the wolf one and you pull a picture out of a magazine and just draw it?”

 

    “From an old picture, yeah.” He says, and he doesn’t say it wasn’t from a magazine.

 

    “Lucky kid.” Acapulco sighs. “Don’t think my old man ever looked that happy to hold me.”

 

    Crosby doesn’t know what to say about that. He really doesn’t. His dad had left that morning ‘for work’ and had said he didn’t know when he’d be back, leaving him alone for who knows how much of his holiday break and Uncle Tommy has been dead for ten years so it doesn’t really matter how happy he used to look, it doesn’t make Crosby any luckier now.

 

    Well… not alone-alone, because Acapulco is there, and when Crosby had been sulking with his sketchbook on his knee, Acapulco had gone into the kitchen and made hot cocoa in the microwave, and put in a handful of marshmallows picked out of their box of cereal before giving one of the mugs over to Crosby.

 

    “I’m actually kind of glad you’re here.” He admits, setting his sketchbook aside. He turns the fireplace on, and Acapulco immediately moves to lie on the rug. Crosby just sits on the hearth, which is almost too low but not quite. A comfortable height for someone like Acapulco, probably, but a little low for him.

 

    “You are?”

 

    “Yeah. It would suck to be alone over the holidays. Even if we don’t, like… celebrate anything. Do you celebrate stuff?”

 

    “Used to. Don’t believe in anything, except a good party.” He grins, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Hanukkah, Christmas, whatever anyone else is celebrating. Wherever I am, you know? I go with the flow.”

 

    “Well. That’s cool.”

 

    Acapulco licks his lips. “Are we being nice because we’re nice, or like, because we want to have sex?”

 

    “Dude…” Crosby groans. “I don’t know, were you being nice to get sex?”

 

    “No. You just seemed… like. Dude, I don’t fucking know, I didn’t want you being all sad and shit. I just-- like… you say you want me here, you like… actually remembered shit about what I like and like, conversations we had when you got me a present, like… You said I could ask you if I wasn’t sure!”

 

    “Well-- You got me a present that, like… You thought about what I like. Was that because you wanted a blowjob?”

 

    “No. I mean I wouldn’t, like, turn down a blowjob ever, but I just… I don’t know, I just did. There doesn’t have to be a reason for it.”

 

    “Well there you go.” Crosby shrugs broadly. “There doesn’t have to be a reason.”

 

    “You really just… wanted me to like it and be happy and like, say thank you and that’s it?”

 

    “Yeah. Is that what you wanted?”

 

    “Yeah. I guess. And I wanted you to like… show me some of what you were doing. ‘Cause you always hide your shit from me and yell at me when I want to look at it. And I’d be careful! I know how to be careful with shit.”

 

    Crosby doesn’t think Acapulco knows the meaning of the word.

 

    “Do you want to see something?” He asks, setting his mug down on the hearth. “You gotta put pants on for it.”

 

    “Is it in your room?”

 

    “No, it’s outside. Where it’s cold as shit?”

 

    Acapulco laughs. “It’s not even raining. Or dark or anything. I have to go outside to even get my pants. But yeah, fine. I’ll meet you by the poolhouse with pants on.”

 

    Crosby watches him go, and he heads to his room, pulling on a jacket and then grabbing the hoodie he’d let Acapulco borrow once before. He has him change into it, leaving his robe behind, and then he leads him out, not quite to the far end of the back lawn where it drops off to the furrowed hillside, but to the hole in the hedge and the row of cypress trees.

 

    It’s a little hollow that even Acapulco has to crouch to enter. There’s a little painted rock down in the dirt at the base of a tree, and a host of weathered plastic dinosaurs.

 

    “Is this Fort Crosby?” Acapulco grins.

 

    “Yeah. I mean I don’t call it that.”

 

    He kneels down, touching the rock with one finger, reverent, and then one of the dinosaurs. “Not to get weird on you--”

   

    “Don’t ruin the moment, dude.”

 

    “Just, like… I’m not saying you are! But if you _were_ showing me this to get me to suck your dick--”

   

    “That doesn’t make any sense--”

 

    “I’m just saying I would.” Acapulco looks away. “Like, if you wanted it, I would, that’s all.”

 

    Crosby’s stomach flips over. “Let’s get inside. Like-- Dude, I don’t even know your real name, I don’t-- I don’t seduce people with plastic dinosaurs.”

 

    “It’s a good technique, it’s unexpected.”

 

    “Come on.” Crosby holds out a hand so that he can haul Acapulco up to his feet and out of the little hollow.

 

    “I hate it, that’s why I never told you. My name. I, uh… I was Acapulco once, for like… for a code name. When your dad met me. That’s all I can say about it, but… Like… I mean, do you really want to know?”

 

    “Yeah.”

 

    Acapulco looks out at the hills. “Manfred. That’s the one I hate less. I can tell you’re laughing.”

 

    “I’m not laughing.” Crosby promises. He’s kind of close, or he was for a moment. “That’s the one you hate less, huh? I won’t ask about the other one.”

 

    “At least it’s like… like Manfred Mann. You know, ‘Blinded by the Light’? Am I going to have to make you listen to music now?”

 

    “Yeah, if you want.” Crosby smiles. He reaches out for Acapulco’s hand again-- Manfred’s hand. Manfred… “Anyone ever call you ‘Manny’? Freddie?”

 

    He makes a face at ‘Manny’, but considers ‘Freddie’ a moment. “No. Why, you want to?”

 

    “I dunno. If you don’t like ‘Manfred’ I could.”

 

    “That’s pretty gay.” He snorts. “You can call me whatever you want, I mean. I’m pretty gay.”

 

    “Yeah, dude, I’ve noticed.” Crosby rolls his eyes. They’re still holding hands when they reach the poolhouse. There’s mistletoe over the door, which he must have brought himself, since Crosby knows his dad would never bother. He pulls away before they can cross beneath it.

 

    And Acapulco-- Manfred-- sees him see it and sees him pull away, and shrugs. “Yeah, that was for your dad. You can come in though, if you want.”

 

    “No, I’ll see you up at the house-- I’ll reheat the cocoa. You can play music for me.”

 

    “I can play part of it on the piano.” Manfred says, like he’s waiting for Crosby to laugh with him. He rolls his eyes when Crosby doesn’t. “Fuck, you actually literally don’t know the song, yeah, we’re gonna change that in a minute.”

 

    “Okay.” Crosby laughs.

 

    He reheats what’s left of their cocoa and Manfred comes back wearing the hoodie. His jeans are gone, but then, they’d been dirty after his trip into the secret fort. He cues up the music, and Crosby brings in some cookies along with the cocoa. They wind up in the middle of the sofa together, shoulder to shoulder, Manfred throwing himself fully into the experience of listening to the song. Which Crosby guesses is good. It’s musically… complex? Pretty? The lyrics are weird. Then at one point part of the music is Chopsticks and Crosby does laugh, late as he is to the joke.

 

\---

 

26- The Wolf King

 

    He rarely gets on the grapevine for any reason. He does his business in his territory, and he expands his territory where and when he can, but there’s nothing north of the grapevine he _wants_.

 

    But the mother of his children needed a favor, and well… they don’t talk much, but he owes her. He wouldn’t be the Wolf King without her.

 

    He’d been the third son, his father had been… something. A big enough deal for his time. He couldn’t have dreamed of what his youngest boy would make of his little piece of action… Hector hadn’t had a head for business, or for anything else. Had a wife, but whatever kind of trouble they had in the bedroom, there were never any kids. Jason could wrap his head around the business fine, but he had a real temper and he let it run him. Had about five mistresses, and sometimes one of them took a nine month vacation. Orian… Orian was gangly, quiet… easy to overlook, at first. And he never wanted to have kids, but his father wanted grandchildren. And his father was sick. So he got himself a wife, and he closed his eyes and thought about whatever it took.

 

    They would have named the first after his old man, if the kid had made it. Next two were both girls. By the time Crosby was born, Orian Franklin was the Wolf King.

 

    It’s not just that the girls were enough, though their grandfather had doted on the precious little bundles to his last breath. No, he’d proved himself plenty of other ways. Hector got out of the business, it had been a weight off his shoulders to be passed over anyway. Jason… well, he’s out of the business, too. That temper.

 

    Orian let one of the men responsible live, that time. Someone, after all, needed to be able to tell the story of what happened when you came for the Wolf King’s family. It carries more weight coming from a frightened near-victim than it does when you tell people yourself.

 

    Well. He let him live long enough to tell a few people what had happened. Then he picked him up again. That was his brother, after all.

 

    He doesn’t plan on staying north of the grapevine any longer than necessary. Neither he nor the wife want to actually spend any time together. But he can drop off little gifts for the girls. Still, once he’s done with business there, he’s heading back to LA as fast as he can. There’s something so depressing about Bakersfield, but then, she’d wanted to disappear where no one would ever look for her. Who would look for anyone in _Bakersfield_?

 

\---

 

27- Acapulco

 

    Crosby is up early enough the next morning to catch him before he can get his cereal. It’s been a while since they’ve fought over it, but if they’re low… Not that Crosby couldn’t just go buy more, he’s got a car and shit. Or send someone to.

 

    “You want pancakes?” Crosby asks, and the fight Acapulco was preparing to put up over the potentially-last-bowl-of-cereal vanishes.

 

    “Are you offering to make me pancakes?”

 

    “I’ve never made them for fewer than two people, so I’m offering to let you eat my leftover pancakes, since Dad’s out of town.” He corrects. “So don’t try to suck my dick over it.”

 

    “Yeah, whatever. I mean I do, yeah. I like pancakes. You, uh… you want me to wash up and help?”

 

    Crosby blinks at him for a moment, but then he nods. He even smiles a little and hands over the apron.

 

    “You know, my dad’s not here, you could wear pants around the house if you wanted.” He says, but Acapulco has a robe on this time and he doesn’t sound like a dick about it. He sounds like he really just means if Acapulco wanted.

 

    But he’s got slippers to keep the tiles from feeling cold underfoot-- and to keep his feet from getting dirty going from the poolhouse to the big house, and he’s got his robe, so pants are pretty overrated. He shrugs.

 

    “Guess if it gets cold or something, but I’m okay.”

 

    “Sure.” Crosby gets a mixing bowl down from over the fridge. Which… nice. He’s not exactly as tall as his dad, but still. He’s tall.

 

    He looks good. He didn’t look this good when they met, did he? It’s only been… what, eight months? How much could he have changed? Not that Acapulco wouldn’t have sucked his dick that spring break if he’d gone for it, but it wasn’t about attraction then, it was about… just he’d have gone with anyone who asked him, basically. That’s his general philosophy.

 

    Crosby measures actual ingredients out, instead of getting out a box of pancake mix, like he’s got the recipe memorized and shit, has Acapulco stir. He pours the first one out into the pan, lets Acapulco hover at his shoulder as he watches it cook, flips it at just the right moment… He turns it out onto the plate when it’s done, and it looks perfect. He’d heard that the first pancake was always, like, the messed up one, but he’d eat that pancake, no problem.

 

    “Can you pour out the next one for me? Same amount as I did before?”

 

    “Yeah, sure.”

 

    They work like that a while-- Crosby offers to let him flip one, but he declines. They’ve got a good track record with perfect pancakes. He doesn’t want to be the reason that’s fucked up.

 

    “Nice work… Freddie.” Crosby picks up the pancake plate, and grabs the syrup from the fridge. “Grab another plate and some forks?”

 

    He does, his face hot. He doesn’t know how he feels about nicknames-- well, nicknames based on his real name-- but he has some very definite feelings about the little smirk it comes with, that he’d want to punch on anyone else, but it’s not mean on Crosby. Or, it wasn’t just then.

 

    It’s weird eating in the formal dining room when it’s just the two of them having breakfast-- usually a couch-and-GSN affair-- but it’s kind of nice.

 

    Crosby stops him before they sit down and dig in, pointing to the apron.

 

    “Yeah, we could--”

 

    “Did you want to hang-- Sorry, what?”

 

    “Could hang up the apron, yeah.” He hurries to do just that, face red. He can feel how red it is. When he gets back into the dining room, though, Crosby snags him again, tugging him in close and leaning over to kiss the top of his head.

 

    So his face is like… right there in Crosby’s chest, almost at his neck, he can _smell_ that warm, sleepy early morning musk, and it smells _good_. He wants to wrap himself up in Crosby’s bed and bury his face against his pillow or under his blankets and just smell that smell, because it’s fucking weird, sure, but not as weird as smelling his neck.

 

    “That’s for, um…” He pulls back.

 

    “Cooking, right.” Acapulco nods. “Apron stuff.”

 

    “Right.” Crosby coughs and goes to his seat at the table. They both reach for the butter dish at the same time.

 

    He lets Crosby take it. It would be easy if he was just turned on or something. And he is, because Crosby smells good and he’d tugged him in and being tugged does something to him even when it’s not rough, but he doesn’t have a hard on or anything, and it’s not about being turned on. It’s about how… how not sexy it was. In a nice way. It wasn’t about that… it didn’t even make him wonder if he ought to be sucking Crosby’s dick or what, like it was just _nice_.

 

    He probably does stuff like that to his friends at college all the time. Like hugs and not-about-being-sexy kisses. Well, and he had that one friend who he did have sexy benefits with, so he definitely did all kinds of stuff with him, but he was probably just like this with his other friends. Like he could just touch people and have it be nice and not weird. Like the other day when he’d taken Acapulco’s hand and then he took it again for no reason. Except it felt nice, it must have felt nice to him, too.

 

    It’s been years since someone’s just held him, no sex, no nothing, just… comfort shit. He doesn’t know how to ask for it. He just feels like he’d do anything for Crosby to do that again. He pours way too much syrup on his pancakes and tries to imagine a life where he could ask for it.

 

EXT. UCLA CAMPUS- DAY

 

ACAPULCO is heading for a film lecture. Strike that, MANFRED is heading for a film lecture. He’s just a student and not a fuckup who could never get into a good school. Even if he only got in because his dad is rich, he still had to be good enough to get in with a rich dad, the city is full of kids with rich dads who’d love to go to UCLA, and anyway, he’s walking across the campus and he’s dressed nice, and he runs into CROSBY, and…

 

    He doesn’t know. And they what, immediately become best friends? Manfred’s not any better than Acapulco, just because he uses a real person name. Manfred doesn’t just get to hit it off with Crosby. If they met at college, how would he know they both like vintage game shows and Lucky Charms? Or red popsicles-- well, no, those are the best ones, he could assume they’d agree.

 

INT. THE WOLF KING’S HOUSE- DAY

 

ACAPULCO is a moron and he has a crush on CROSBY. Of all fucking people. And he just wants to be kissed.

 


	10. When I Looked the Cafe Was Empty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter with the extra abuse trigger warnings-- mostly for the Wolf King segment, but also in Acapulco's, this is kind of where... Things happen.

28- Crosby

 

    The rest of the day passes without so much as a phone call. They hang out, the house feeling weirdly empty even if it wouldn’t have been very different with his Dad there. And that night, he can feel himself almost ask something. He doesn’t know what.

 

    In the morning, they go back to cereal and game shows, and that’s comfortable, that’s normal. That’s good, except… Except something. Except he shouldn’t have kissed him and smelled his hair and held his hand and asked for his real name, because now he’s not some twink with a criminal code name, he’s just…

 

    He’s just a boy. And he understands things, sort of, and he says exactly the wrong thing most of the times, but then there are times when he says exactly the right thing. And he’s so fucking impressed by pancakes, he’s so impressed every time, and no one’s ever made Crosby feel good enough in his own home like that.

 

    When some stupid modern game show comes on, Manfred changes the channel, whining about how it’s gone to shit and he just wants to see ‘What’s My Line’, and he winds up lying on his side on the couch with his head on Crosby’s thigh.

 

    If it was a come-on, he might have gotten angry, or shoved him off. But he just… _does_ it, and it’s comfortable. And the hand on his knee is just comfortable. And it’s just comfortable, to reach over and brush back the strands of hair that had escaped from his ponytail for him, as long as he’s there. Tuck them behind an ear. Try not to think about how they feel, or the soft sound he makes.

 

    Crosby can’t breathe. It wasn’t sexual, a moment ago, none of it was. He’s the one who crossed that line this time, he’s the one who reached out and made things… more, somehow, he hadn’t known. He should have known. Why would he wear his hair long if he didn’t like having it played with? And so he should take his hand back, from where it’s resting at the side of his head, but he doesn’t.

 

    “Freddie?” He whispers. It feels good, it feels right-- he looks like a Freddie, maybe. It’s something no one else calls him, and Crosby likes that.

 

    “Yeah?”

 

    “Sit up a sec?”

 

    Manfred does. Crosby’s hand slips away from him. Their eyes meet.

 

    “Okay, I’m really confused right now--” He starts.

 

    He doesn’t get to finish. Crosby’s lips are on his and he kisses him back, holds onto him so tight, until they both spring apart, and it’s not just the kiss that has him breathing hard. It’s a little bit the kiss.

 

    “That… doesn’t make me less confused.” Manfred admits, not looking at him.

 

    “I want… I mean-- Yeah. I don’t-- Look, I’m not… I’m not nice to you because I want to have sex with you, but… like, maybe I want to do stuff because we’ve been… getting along. I don’t know.”

 

    “What, like you like me? Like… Wait, like, really?”

 

    “I mean, we can’t.” Crosby groans.

 

    “We could. Just once?” Manfred’s hand slips over to rest on his knee. And it’s not a come-on, it’s reassuring. Or maybe it’s both.

 

    “You’re with my dad.”

 

    “Yeah. He’s not here. I mean-- like… We’re not exclusive or anything. And-- I mean, you know, like… Does it make a difference that I’ve showered and brushed my teeth and shit since, because it’s been a couple days and-- I mean does that make a difference?”

 

    “I don’t know.”

 

    Manfred’s hand leaves his leg, but then slides in closer, his arms winding around Crosby’s neck.

 

    “I wish I’d met you first.” He whispers, his lips brushing against Crosby’s ear, soft. “But you’re a nice boy… and I’d never have met you any other way. But I’m not sorry. And you can say we can’t do it even once and that’s fine, but you kissed me. You kissed me.”

 

    “Just once.” He swallows, his hands moving to Manfred’s waist. “We could, just once, just once… I mean it-- We can’t be a thing. You know we can’t.”

 

    “Just once.” He nods, pulling back. “No one needs to know. Just once, because-- because fuck, it’s the holidays, and we’re lonely, and-- And so it, these things just happen, right?”

 

    “Yeah. These things happen all the time.”

 

    Manfred moves down to kneel in front of the couch, and Crosby swallows. He wants to take his hair down, he wants to just play with it, and he’s afraid that’s too much. Afraid once he does that, it won’t be ‘just once’, can’t be just once.

 

    He starts to undo his fly, but has his hands batted away.

 

    “Let me. Let me take care of you. Make it good for you. I can do that.”

 

    “Yeah. You can do that.” He nods, and he lets Manfred handle it. He’s already half hard by the time his jeans are open, by the time Manfred has a hand on him. The anticipation is killing him, and maybe he’s been anticipating this since spring break, or part of him has. What if they had met first? What if he could have been just Crosby’s? Because Manfred can call him a nice boy all he wants but he’s still the son of the Wolf King and he’s still… well, he could still meet a not-so-nice boy. After college, anyway. He has a gun, how nice a boy can he even be?

 

    Or they could have met in any of the places where it doesn’t matter how nice you are. At a concert or a movie or a bookstore… anyplace. And he could have been the one to bring him back to the house, and he could have… he could have said yes to so many stupid little things. To fucking marco polo or whatever else Manfred wanted to do in the pool. To kisses, and to all those requests his dad never granted for boyfriend stuff… Maybe it’s stupid to think about that, the life they didn’t have. One they can’t have.

 

    Manfred knows what he’s doing, and as long as Crosby doesn’t think about where he learned it, it’s fine, it’s good. He takes him in so _deep_ , he moans around him… It’s supposed to be just once, just because they’re bored and they’re alone, supposed to mean nothing except that Manfred likes doing it and Crosby wants to return the favor, but he looks up through his lashes and their eyes meet and it’s not nothing.

 

    He doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything that’s struck him more. It had been one thing, to see them burning into his from across the room, music playing, lips moving, body swaying, had been a powerful thing, or he wouldn’t have drawn that moment a hundred times, but this…

 

    This close, this long, he can see so clearly, the outer blue-green and the inner ring of hazel, and the way on one side it bleeds out into the green more than on the other, how they aren’t all one color at all when he’d assumed before they were just green. And he can see how wide his pupils are. How much he wants this, and it’s too much, it’s too much…

 

    His fingertips brush over one cheek and he’s itching to grab hold of his hair, to move with him… but he can’t hold his gaze, that’s too much… everything about this is too much.

 

    “Freddie, Freddie, _fuck_ …” He groans, his hand sliding back, closing around his hair. And then the door clicks open and his eyes fly open and he’s never lost an erection as fast as he’s losing this one. He tugs, sharp. “Fuck-- _fuck_!”

 

    “Uh, ‘fuck’ is right.” His dad ambles into the room. He doesn’t look angry-- Crosby half expects him to say he’s not, only disappointed. The look on his face had been unreadable, in the half second Crosby had been able to bear looking at him.

 

And Manfred pulls away when he realizes something’s wrong, in time to turn and see they’re not alone, and Crosby manages to get himself tucked back in, his shirt pulled down to offer a little extra modesty-- a glance up lets him know he’s being granted a moment to get himself in order, his dad looking the other way.

 

“So, quick… quick question, who is ‘Freddie’?”

 

“Guy at college.” Crosby lies. “Been into him, been getting blue-balled. Nobody, really.”

 

“Uh-huh, uh-huh… okay, well, another quick question, what the hell is going on here?”

 

His voice is still too even. His expression is still unreadable. And he’s standing there, just behind Manfred, who he can’t look at, he can’t, can see him out of the corner of his eye looking back and forth between them, but if they look at each other it’s over...

 

“I dunno. Bored and horny? It just happened, it-- It just--”

 

His dad reaches down, grabbing Manfred’s hair, giving him half a moment to get his feet under himself before hauling him up to his feet, expression still perfectly calm.

 

“Well, Cros, your mother says hi. Don’t think she imagined you’d be doing _this_. Don’t think she’d be super happy about it. But you always did disappoint her. Now, did you really need to disappoint _me_?”

 

“It didn’t mean anything--”

 

“It really didn’t--” Manfred adds, though another sharp tug stops him.

 

“Crosby, if you want to get your rocks off, that’s fine, I can give you a _list_ of the people who work for me that would gladly do it for you. I don’t care. Get what you need. But we’ve talked about this before.”

 

Crosby’s brow furrows. He and his dad have most definitely _not_ talked about this before. He’s never given his dad a reason to need to have this talk with him, their only discussions about Manfred have been of the ‘why’s he got to be here and why can’t he wear pants’ variety.

 

“Don’t play with Daddy’s toys.” He shakes his head. “Now let’s not have to have this talk again.”

 

\---

 

29- Acapulco

 

    Crosby makes him feel safe, somehow, the two of them sharing the big house alone, and he could feel like he belongs there. Like he really belongs there, not because it’s a big house and he deserves it and he’s keeping his place, but just because someone wants him to be there. Because Crosby had said he was glad he was there… because neither of them have to be alone.

 

    It’s been a good couple years since he’s felt safe. It’s been a lifetime since he’s felt comfortable. Comfortable with another person, so that he could just… Well, he doesn’t know how to ask for attention or ask to be touched, but it’s Crosby, who held his hand and didn’t want anything from him, who fed him breakfast yesterday and kissed the top of his head and still didn’t ask him for anything.

 

    He wants Crosby to ask him for things, or he wants to do things with Crosby, but the fact that Crosby doesn’t ask for them is half the reason he wants it. He’s used to wanting to be wanted, this is just a mess… But it’s safe to scoot down the couch and rest his head in Crosby’s lap. After the past couple of days, it feels like he can and it could just be okay. And it is okay.

 

    It’s okay right up until he feels Crosby’s fingers through his hair and he wants so _badly_ for… for anything to happen. And it wouldn’t be losing the safety of knowing he can reach out for him. He’d still be safe… it would just be different, that’s all. And Crosby whispers his name-- no, his nickname, which he doesn’t hate at all, he’s never hated it, it’s theirs and nobody else’s.

 

    “Sit up a sec?” Crosby asks, which is not the same as ‘get off me for reals’ and the way he says it...

 

    “Okay, I’m really confused right now--” He says, because one look in Crosby’s eyes and the foundation is rocked. And then the foundation crumbles completely.

 

    Over the course of Crosby’s winter break, Acapulco has constructed the perfect movie kiss in his head a dozen times, the angle and the lighting and the music, where they would be and what they would say and how it would go. He’s thought of every kiss he’s ever seen and every kiss he’s ever had, of what genre they would be and how that would affect the way he’d shoot it.

 

    The real thing? Blows every single one of those moving pictures in his mind’s eye out of the water.

 

    “That… doesn’t make me less confused.” He admits. Crosby averts his gaze a little.

 

    “I want… I mean-- Yeah. I don’t-- Look, I’m not… I’m not nice to you because I want to have sex with you, but… like, maybe I want to do stuff because we’ve been… getting along. I don’t know.” He says. Acapulco would really like to kiss him again, and he’s still not sure he understands, he just knows that if he does, then there’s no way he can pretend it never happened.

 

    “What, like you like me? Like… Wait, like, really?”

 

    “I mean, we can’t.”

 

    “We could. Just once?” He touches Crosby’s knee, gentle. Just where his hand had been resting before… before, when he had been resting his head in Crosby’s lap.

 

    “You’re with my dad.” Crosby presses. Which, okay, yeah. He can see how that’s weird, but it’s not like he just finished blowing the Wolf King, or anything else, it’s been a while.

 

    “Yeah. He’s not here. I mean-- like… We’re not exclusive or anything. And-- I mean, you know, like… Does it make a difference that I’ve showered and brushed my teeth and shit since, because it’s been a couple days and-- I mean does that make a difference?” He asks, feeling a rising desperation. And if Crosby doesn’t want to get him off, that’s more than fair, but they’ve _kissed_ now, how is he supposed to never kiss him again? When will they have a chance like today?

 

    “I don’t know.” Crosby shrugs.

 

    Acapulco leans up to hold him close, stopping just short of swinging into his lap. Everything is too much, he doesn’t know how anyone can do this sober. He can feel a sting behind his eyes and he ignores it, but at least his face is hidden from view, for just a moment. “I wish I’d met you first. But you’re a nice boy… and I’d never have met you any other way. But I’m not sorry. And you can say we can’t do it even once and that’s fine, but you kissed me. You kissed me.”

 

    “Just once.” Crosby grabs onto him-- well, not grabs, he’s gentle, he’s too gentle, but he makes it feel so right. “We could, just once, just once… I mean it-- We can’t be a thing. You know we can’t.”

 

    “Just once. No one needs to know. Just once, because-- because fuck, it’s the holidays, and we’re lonely, and-- And so it, these things just happen, right?”

 

    “Yeah. These things happen all the time.”

 

    He scrambles down to kneel between Crosby’s legs-- long legs, strong thighs, he’s thought about them since summer, and he hadn’t even seen anything more than a few inches above the knee, really. Crosby goes to get it out and Acapulco takes over, eager. He has to be the one to do this, has to be the one to touch him, to do all of this for him. If they only have once, it’s going to be the best fucking once...

 

    “Let me. Let me take care of you. Make it good for you. I can do that.”

 

    “Yeah. You can do that.” Crosby sighs, and he lets him. And Acapulco does, he does everything.

 

    Crosby is big. Or at least, proportional. Which isn’t really a surprise, if Acapulco understands anything about genetics, but that’s kind of weird to think about, so he doesn’t think about it. He just thinks about how much he likes the look of him and the feel of him…

 

    And the scent of him, when he takes him in as far as he can and breathes in deep, and it’s not exactly the same as the sleepy-warm smell of being tugged close just to have the top of his head kissed, it’s a sharper, sexier smell than that, but it reminds him of that moment just the same.

 

    He just wants it to be good. He just wants it to be good enough that maybe Crosby will say they could do it again. If they had the chance to, if they could be sure, if his dad was actually out of the house instead of just in his office… It’s playing with fire and he should know better, but he doesn’t want to know better than this. He just wants this… he just wants _Crosby_ , who wants him after everything, who touches his cheek instead of grabbing the back of his head, like… like the only thing that matters is that Acapulco is here with him and neither of them has to be alone.

 

    They are alone, they’re alone when the Wolf King is there, it’s not the same, it’s cold and it’s empty and that was always fine because Acapulco was never looking for love. He was looking for something else and love was never supposed to enter into things. But sometimes it feels like only he and Crosby exist, like the rest of the world isn’t real, anyone who doesn’t live with that man can’t be real the way that they are, because only they know what it’s like.

 

    Love’s not supposed to enter into things. And this can’t be love. Understanding, then. They can understand each other, that’s all. And he’ll make this good. Even if they never do it again, this one time will be good enough to… to hold onto, maybe. Just one beautiful thing that he’s allowed to have.

 

    He moans around him, hands sliding up Crosby’s inner thighs, and shit, he should have gotten his jeans all the way off, what if he never gets to see him seriously naked? What if he never gets to touch him, touch him the way he needs to touch him, but even if he can’t feel bare skin under his hands, he can feel how warm he is even through the denim, how strong, and it’s good, it’s good, it’s all good.

 

    He hears his name between hissed out ‘fuck’s and Crosby finally, _finally_ pulls his hair, except something’s wrong, because he doesn’t come, he just goes soft, and that isn’t a good ‘fuck’, and when Acapulco pulls off, he finds himself staring up at the Wolf King.

 

    _Fuck_.

 

     “Uh, ‘fuck’ is right.” The Wolf King says, and he doesn’t sound angry, but that doesn’t make Acapulco feel much safer. And then, even though he’s looking right at him… “So, quick… quick question, who is ‘Freddie’?”

 

    And he wants to stand up and scream ‘I am’, and maybe there’s a movie where he does. But this isn’t that movie.

 

    “Guy at college.” Crosby lies, and doesn’t look at Acapulco. “Been into him, been getting blue-balled. Nobody, really.”

 

    “Uh-huh, uh-huh… okay, well, another quick question, what the hell is going on here?”

 

    Acapulco can’t answer. There’s only one way to save his own neck, and that’s if it was Crosby’s idea, if he put on a pout and some tears and said ‘Daddy, he _forced_ me’, and there are a lot of people he’d throw under a lot of buses, but he’s not going to throw Crosby under this one.

 

    “I dunno. Bored and horny? It just happened, it-- It just--”

 

    Suddenly, there’s a hand fisted tight around his ponytail and he scrambles to stand before the yank comes, and he mostly manages that, but it’s tightly controlled. It’s not anger, not heat.

 

    “Well, Cros, your mother says hi. Don’t think she imagined you’d be doing _this_. Don’t think she’d be super happy about it. But you always did disappoint her. Now, did you really need to disappoint _me_?” The Wolf King says, all conversational and shit, and Acapulco winces.

 

    “It didn’t mean anything--” Crosby protests, and that’s what’s going to save them both, if anything can.

 

    “It really didn’t--” Acapulco jumps in, and there’s still no heat in the hard yank to his hair that silences him. It just feels like… like fucking obedience training, getting him to quit his yapping. And he’s angry, on his own behalf and on Crosby’s. And he’s ashamed, because shit, of all the things to have the guy walk in on, of all the things for a guy to want, to be going after them both, well it looks worse than it is. And unlike Crosby, his erection hasn’t gone away and that makes the shame a hell of a lot worse.

 

    “Crosby, if you want to get your rocks off, that’s fine, I can give you a _list_ of the people who work for me that would gladly do it for you.” The Wolf King sighs, like the whole thing bores him. “I don’t care. Get what you need. But we’ve talked about this before. Don’t play with Daddy’s toys. Now let’s not have to have this talk again.”

 

    Crosby hangs his head at that, red in the face. Like he’s ten and he’s been caught sneaking into the office, instead of banging his dad’s… well, whatever Acapulco is.

 

    “As for you? Poolhouse, now.” The Wolf King whispers, and Acapulco shivers.

 

    The hand on his ponytail doesn’t waver one bit for the whole forced march out to the poolhouse, he’s only released when the Wolf King tosses him down on the bed.

 

    “What do you have to say for yourself?” He asks, and this isn’t the conversational tone he had had back in the house. Acapulco is, he realizes, in a whole other kind of trouble.

 

    “I was high--”

 

    “Don’t bullshit me, baby, I know what you look like when you’re high and I know how much you have here. You get someone to pick you up more while I was gone?”

 

    “No, it was-- it was just pills, I brought them with me.” He shakes his head. He wants to break eye contact. He doesn’t. “I, uh… I came down pretty hard when-- With all that, back there.”

 

    “I brought you into my home, and how do you repay me? That’s my _son_. Look, I don’t care what you do when you’re off working, I don’t care who you take into a hotel or a back room, I don’t care how many dicks you suck when you’re not under my roof, but you are under my roof. This is my house. That’s my kid.”

 

    “Okay, okay-- so punish me!” He slips off the bed to his knees. “So punish me, I deserve it, that was fucked up, I get it, but it-- it didn’t mean anything. I was just… I fucked up, but it won’t happen again.”

 

    “No. It won’t. And if it does, it’s not going to happen a third time. What did you think you were doing, what-- I mean, what did you think you were doing? With my boy? What did you think you would, uh, accomplish?”

 

    “I was bored. And lonely. ‘Cause you were gone.” He puts all the come-on into those words that he can muster, reaching up for him, he knows just the way the man likes, just how to fawn and beg, and that’s what’s going to get him out of this mess. “I made a mistake, but I won’t do it again. He was nothing like _you_ , Daddy…”

 

    And that part’s the absolute truth, but Acapulco couldn’t have predicted the flare of anger and disgust that he feels. He doesn’t let it show, not for a second. If he couldn’t mask those feelings he’d never get out of half the deals he makes in his line of work. Crosby is nothing like the Wolf King, and Manfred is royally fucked, because he thinks he might just love him for it.

 

    “Okay, could you--” The Wolf King grabs his wrist, stopping him from going for his belt. “Thanks, but could you not call me ‘Daddy’ when you’ve just had your mouth on my _son’s_ cock? Could we not do that right now?”

 

    “Right. Sure. Sorry! You can punish me for that, too. I’ve been bad, I deserve it--”

 

    “Don’t get cute about this, honey. Don’t bat your eyes and call yourself a naughty baby over _this_. My _son_ , under my roof, after everything I’ve done for you. Because you were nothing, when I picked you up. When I let you into _my_ hospital, and when I gave you advice, opportunities? You were nobody when I picked you up and if I decided you were going to be nobody again, everything you’ve built for yourself could vanish like _that_.” He snaps his fingers. “Do you understand why I am not in the mood for cute, from, from you?”

 

    Manfred nods, but the fear leaves him. Not because he thinks there won’t be consequences… there will be, and maybe he can control them and maybe he can’t. He just understands now. This is about Crosby, and he never had to try to protect Crosby, this is about protecting Crosby from him. He was taken in, even though there’s no earthly reason why anyone should trust him, let alone the Wolf King who isn’t in the habit of trusting anyone. He betrayed that trust, transgressed against some kind of… not really the bounds of nature or whatever, but at least of decency, he’s transgressed a lot of decency sucking Crosby’s cock.

 

    “I want to hear you say it. I want to know you understand.”

 

    “Because he’s your son. And you took me in.” He whispers, his eyes closing. “ _Hit me_.”

 

    He’s asked before, he’s begged before, he’s been bruised and beaten but always told they would not be doing a thing to that pretty face. A little pat to the cheek and a firm refusal, and something else just as good.

 

    This time he doesn’t get a refusal.

 

\---

 

30- The Wolf King

 

    They’d stopped to switch drivers, between his usual driver and the backup muscle he’d taken with him, once they got off the grapevine again, but aside from that it had been non-stop. The trip out and the business to deal with and the trip back. Well really, _Bakersfield_. What was he supposed to do, get a hotel? His wife would let him take the spare bedroom while he handled her little problem, he severely doubted there was any place in Bakersfield worth setting foot in.

 

    Even for how brief it had been, he feels like he’d been away from LA too long. It’s late morning when he finally gets home, walks through the front door waiting to hear he’d been missed, waiting to be catered to after the long drive, and…

 

    Crosby had a girl over, apparently. Right out in the living room, which, fair. House to himself, he’s done the same. He can give the kid a moment, duck into the kitchen and then come in with a little warning, let him have a good time. There’s the unmistakable glimpse of a dark ponytail on a bobbing head and that’s all he needs to see to not want to see more.

 

    Or, Crosby had… not a girl. Because girls were not normally called ‘Freddie’, for starters, and because that was Acapulco’s bathrobe, that was…

 

    That was Acapulco.

 

    And then, Crosby’s eyes flutter open and he sees him.

 

    “Fuck-- _fuck_!”

 

    “Uh, ‘fuck’ is right.” He says, and he’s almost amused by this, the one thing he had never seen coming. Crosby, with Acapulco? First he would have had to have known Crosby swung that way and if Crosby swung that way why would he not just say so? Second, well… the two of them didn’t exactly get along. Although… all those drawings… He looks away, giving Crosby the chance to stuff it back in his pants. Third, he would have had to have thought Crosby might have the balls to go after his little trophy twink while daddy’s away, which he never would have imagined.

 

    “So, quick… quick question, who is ‘Freddie’?” He asks, because that’s not Acapulco’s name. Is it? No. Acapulco was… Mannix or Marlowe or some fucking thing, it was an ‘M’. That’s good, then, a matter of convenience. Maybe.

 

    “Guy at college. Been into him, been getting blue-balled. Nobody, really.” Crosby says, but he doesn’t look at him.

 

    “Uh-huh, uh-huh… okay, well, another quick question, what the hell is going on here?” He moves closer, and Acapulco… oh that lost little lamb of a filthy, backstabbing cocksucker, Acapulco is looking to _him_ for an answer.

 

    “I dunno. Bored and horny?” Crosby says, a little of that air of the sullen teenager about him. “It just happened, it-- It just--”

 

    Well, that’s all very well for Crosby, Crosby gets to be bored and horny. With his own boy toy, preferably, but at least he’s finally figuring out he’s a Franklin and he can take what he wants-- within reason. He needs a little reminder to put him in his place, because he doesn’t get to take from dear old dad, but he can take. He grabs Acapulco’s ponytail and gives him approximately two point five seconds to stand up if he wants all his hair to stay attached to his scalp.

 

    “Well, Cros, your mother says hi. Don’t think she imagined you’d be doing _this_. Don’t think she’d be super happy about it. But you always did disappoint her. Now, did you really need to disappoint _me_?”

 

    “It didn’t mean anything--” Crosby protests, and he should look hurt, he should look _hurt_ because he hates to be a disappointment. Instead, his eyes flicker to Acapulco and he looks _scared_. And… something else, something he can’t catch because he’s stuck on scared. Not _of_ Acapulco. _For_ Acapulco?

 

    Oh, they can’t have that… no, can’t have that at all.

 

    “It really didn’t--” Acapulco starts, and the Wolf King stops him.

 

    “Crosby, if you want to get your rocks off, that’s fine, I can give you a _list_ of the people who work for me that would gladly do it for you. I don’t care. Get what you need. But we’ve talked about this before.” He sighs, only to be met with a blank look. “Don’t play with Daddy’s toys. Now let’s not have to have this talk again.”

 

    Crosby looks properly chastened, at least. Boy does hate to be a disappointment… it’s those other things he had seen in him that worry.

 

    “As for you?” He hisses, in the vicinity of Acapulco’s ear, if about a foot above it. “Poolhouse, now.”

 

    He wishes he had somewhere else to have this talk, but the poolhouse is it. Must that boy taint everything? He’d seemed like such a sound investment, too… Well, if he plays this right, he still could be. He could come out of it… _indebted_ to the Wolf King’s mercy. But if he and Crosby started to get close… oh no, he’d have to cut him loose then. The idea-- traded in for a younger model! Him, still a man in his prime, after all, and Acapulco acted like a wanton little slut looking for an older man when he was at the house, but who knows what he’s like when he’s on his own? Now that he was pulling away, feeling like a big shot, was he looking to take someone young and pretty under his wing?

 

    He’s going to have a second thought real quick if he thinks Crosby is that young, pretty thing, if he thinks he’s going to take his _son_ , and turn him against him. If he thinks he’s going to develop any kind of sway that would threaten the loyalty a son feels towards his father, he was going to have to have that second thought fast.

 

    He throws Acapulco down on the bed, watches him scramble to recover himself even slightly.

 

    “What do you have to say for yourself?” He asks, and it is a little reassuring to see the moment of fear.

 

    “I was high--” Acapulco lies. As if he could ever think… After everything, as if he could hope to pass that one off.

 

    “Don’t bullshit me, baby, I know what you look like when you’re high and I know how much you have here. You get someone to pick you up more while I was gone?”

 

    “No, it was-- it was just pills, I brought them with me. I, uh… I came down pretty hard when-- With all that, back there.”

 

    It still sounds like a lie, but Acapulco looks him dead in the eye, and it’s not like he checked his luggage for pills… he knows what he’s like on coke, maybe he’d taken something else. Doesn’t excuse what he did, of course. But it could be true. He would just need to keep a close eye on him from now on…

 

    “I brought you into my home, and how do you repay me?” He takes a step closer, looms a little, let that dangerous edge into his voice. One he rarely needed to use, because people knew enough to want to keep him from using it. “That’s my _son_. Look, I don’t care what you do when you’re off working, I don’t care who you take into a hotel or a back room, I don’t care how many dicks you suck when you’re not under my roof, but you are under my roof. This is my house. That’s my kid.”

 

    “Okay, okay-- so punish me! So punish me, I deserve it, that was fucked up, I get it, but it-- it didn’t mean anything. I was just… I fucked up, but it won’t happen again.” Acapulco begs-- he even gets down on his knees. And it’s a pretty sight, or it would be, if it wasn’t for the sight he’s still trying to put out of his head.

 

    No, he’s going to have a bit of a difficult time with physical arousal on this one, because he may not be a good father, but he’s a father, that was his child, and Acapulco… Well, Acapulco is going to need to pay for this one, and he’s going to need to remember where his bread is buttered, but it’s all just going to be difficult, he’s been put in a difficult position.

 

    “No. It won’t.” He says, and he’s never had to sound this dangerous because no one has _ever_ crossed him on such a primal level and not already been dead to him. Looks like they’re all learning new things about each other today. “And if it does, it’s not going to happen a third time. What did you think you were doing, what-- I mean, what did you think you were doing? With my boy? What did you think you would, uh, accomplish?”

 

    And typical of Acapulco, he goes all doe-eyed, all sexy-baby on him, as if this was a _game_. He fucks with a man’s son and treats it like a game!

 

     “I was bored. And lonely. ‘Cause you were gone.” He pouts. “I made a mistake, but I won’t do it again. He was nothing like _you_ , Daddy…”

 

    Acapulco reaches for his belt then, and he has to put a stop to that, because while he very much needs to teach him a lesson-- and who gets to fuck him when he’s at the house is part of that lesson-- he is not prepared quite yet, and the last thing he needs is an uninspiring performance fucking that lesson up. Saliva’s barely dried on his chin and he’s already trying to suck the next dick, well…

 

    “Okay, could you-- Thanks, but could you not call me ‘Daddy’ when you’ve just had your mouth on my _son’s_ cock? Could we not do that right now?” He snaps.

 

    “Right. Sure. Sorry! You can punish me for that, too. I’ve been bad, I deserve it--”

 

    “Don’t get cute about this, honey. Don’t bat your eyes and call yourself a naughty baby over _this_. My _son_ , under my roof, after everything I’ve done for you. Because you were nothing, when I picked you up. When I let you into _my_ hospital, and when I gave you advice, opportunities? You were nobody when I picked you up and if I decided you were going to be nobody again, everything you’ve built for yourself could vanish like _that_. Do you understand why I am not in the mood for cute, from, from you?”

 

    Acapulco nods. And he doesn’t look _nearly_ as concerned as he needs to be.

 

    “I want to hear you say it. I want to know you understand.” He leans over him.

 

    “Because he’s your son.” Acapulco closes his eyes, his voice a whisper. Shaking, just a little. Not enough, though... “And you took me in. _Hit me_.”

 

    Acapulco doesn’t have to ask twice.

 

    He might actually believe he needed to ask once. Well, he can believe what he likes.

 

    He makes the most appealing little noise… a few more noises like that, and he could forget the scene he’d walked in on. Remind Acapulco exactly who he’s with and who gives him what he needs. Who it is he shouldn’t think about replacing.

 

    “Yeah, do it, ‘s okay, do it, want you to…” Acapulco breathes. “Just punish me. Just punish me…”

 

    He slaps him again. The sharp sound of that, the little moan… Such a masochist. That was the problem with punishing Acapulco like this, he was only going to get off on it. Well… as long as he remembers who does that for him, too…

 

    “I think you’d better stop running your mouth, and start using it to earn your way back into my good graces, and then we can figure out just how punished you need to get.”

 

   “Yes-- Yes, Sir.”

 

   He considers telling Acapulco to call him something else. Discards the thought. There’s nothing right now that wouldn’t sound wrong coming out of his mouth, nothing he could say to make him happy.

 

   He grabs hold of his hair again, and realizes there’s one thing to be happy about-- he no longer has any reason to pretend he cares about how comfortable Acapulco is. He’s not quite a big enough man to be grateful to have been freed from that charade, but there’s no reason to hold back, no reason to sweet talk him. No, all he has to do is take what he wants and know Acapulco is fully ready to give it to him.

 


	11. That's What They Say When We're Together

31- Crosby

 

    Manfred doesn’t come back up to the house for dinner. Crosby cooks on autopilot, and it doesn’t calm him down the way it normally does. He feels like everything is just autopilot, ever since he saw his dad grab him by the hair and drag him off, he’s just been existing, not knowing what to do.

 

    Manfred doesn’t come back up to the house, and it’s just him and his dad, and he’s not sure if that’s better or worse. They don’t even talk about it. It just sits there, until he can hardly take it.

 

    “He’ll feed himself later.” His dad says, when he catches Crosby looking to an empty chair.

 

    “Yeah, sure. There’ll be plenty of leftovers in the fridge, I guess he can do what he wants.” Crosby shrugs. He shouldn’t have looked, he can’t care.

 

    “Mm. I guess he can. Well… within reason.”

 

    Crosby shrugs, shoveling his dinner into his mouth. He can’t stay at this table, with his dad watching him like a hawk for any sign of weakness. He eats until the anxiety coiling in his stomach makes another bite impossible and then he excuses himself, and he wants to hide in his room but that… as much as he thinks he should be able to hide himself away out of embarrassment, he’s afraid of it being seen as guilt.

 

    He reads, for a while. Until it’s late enough to get ready for bed, and there are unbearably normal goodnights exchanged, before Crosby goes to his room to sit up and listen. Useless, the hallway’s too far to hear Manfred come into the kitchen. Unless he was making a lot of noise on purpose, he could have his ear to the door and not hear the sliding glass door off the living room open. And Manfred would be making as little noise as possible, after this.

 

    He’s not sure how late it is when he slips out, unable to take sitting and waiting a moment longer. He doesn’t go to the kitchen, but to his dad’s office, knocking softly. Not so softly he wouldn’t be heard and answered, if he was there. But there’s no sound from within. Crosby lets out a breath, some of the tightness in his shoulders relaxing. If he’s not in the office, then he’s probably sleeping, not watching the pool. Not watching to see if anyone goes to or from the poolhouse.

 

    He makes up a plate of leftovers, and he’s looking over his shoulder the whole way, looking up to the dark office window as he hurries across to the poolhouse, the door unlocked.

 

    Everything’s dark-- the whole space lit only by the light of the clock by the bed, the coffeemaker in the kitchenette, and the nightlight by the bathroom mirror-- but he can see Manfred in bed, over the covers. Can see him flinch at the sound of the door.

 

    “Freddie?” He asks, his voice soft.

 

    “Cros?” Manfred lifts his head, looking back over his shoulder. He sounds _wrecked_. “Don’t turn the lights on.”

 

    “Okay. You hungry? I-- I brought you some lasagna.”

 

    He moves to the bed, and when he gets there, he doesn’t need the lights. Can see why Manfred asked him to leave them off. He sets the plate on the nightstand before he can drop it.

 

    “Oh jeez-- shit, _fuck_ , he did this to you?”

 

    “No, no-- I mean yeah.” Manfred gives him a weak half smile. “It’s okay, though, like… it’s a fetish.”

 

    “This is not okay, this is not okay, this is-- shit, dude, this--”

 

    He stumbles around the bed to get to the bathroom, only gets as far as the sink and not the toilet before he’s retching, but it’s dry heaving, a little bile at the back of his throat. He can’t, he can’t hold all this in his head, he can’t put it together. His _dad_ , the man he’d idolized his entire life, the person who has meant more to him than anyone or anything else he can _think_ of, and he’s worked so hard for so long and he’s never known if he was living up to half of what was wanted of him, and…

 

    And then _this_ , and Manfred-- Manfred, who… who knows what it’s like to try and to try and to be left alone and to hang on every word from that man, and this happens.

 

    And it’s Crosby’s fault, because he never should have touched him.

 

    He runs the water, cups his hands under and rinses his mouth out as best he can, and then he gets the first aid kit down from the medicine cabinet, and a towel, and a warm, wet washcloth.

 

    Manfred is just lying there, curled around his pillow, dinner untouched, and Crosby starts by cleaning his split lip.

 

    “What are you doing?” He asks, wincing a little, but not moving much.

 

    “Fixing you.” Crosby whispers, brushing the loose strands of hair back again. “Shh, just let me fix you…”

 

    “I asked. I’ve asked for this a million times. And he hardly ever does it when you’re here-- You know those times I’m actually wearing something, it’s ‘cause we do this stuff, he doesn’t want you to know. But I ask for it every time, okay? It’s okay, like, just… please don’t freak out, I know he’s your dad, but like… I always ask for it--”

 

    “Do you really think he gave a damn tonight?” He shakes his head, moving onto Manfred’s back. In the dark, he can’t tell where the skin might be broken. He can make out the welts a little. He can make out the bruises a lot.

 

    “Maybe not. But I still asked. I’m still into it.”

 

    “You flinched when I came in.”

 

    “Yeah. Well. Kind of had my limit. Not used to having… limits.”

 

    “We can’t let anything like that happen again. I’m not going to be the reason he-- _Fuck_ , you--”

 

    “You’re not.”

 

    “ _Freddie_ … I-- If it wasn’t for me--”

 

    “I asked for this and I got off on it, okay, don’t-- don’t make this some fuckin’... bad thing that happened to me that’s your fault. You’re the only person who wasn’t in the room when it happened, and I liked it, okay?”

 

    “It’s not okay. Nothing about this situation is okay. Dude, he could-- If he thought-- Freddie, you need to get away from him. You need to get away.”

 

    “Are you kidding me?” He winces when Crosby finds a place where the skin is broken, pushes himself up on one elbow. “You think I’m allowed to just leave him? No, I-- I’ll ride it out. I’m not gonna stay young and pretty forever. He’ll trade me in for a fuckin’ twenty year old, and… yeah. And I’ll be fine.”

 

    “ _Shit_ , you-- you can’t… Fuck, that’s-- This is not a solution!”

 

    Manfred shrugs and immediately hisses, dropping back down and squeezing his pillow hard. “It’s the solution we’ve got, and listen, tomorrow morning-- Tomorrow morning, I’m a cockroach you just stepped on by accident, you got that? You don’t even hate me, I’m below that. I disgust you. Shit… he didn’t see you come out here, right?”

 

    “Give me some fucking credit, no, he’s in bed. I checked the office. He’s not gonna know I came out here. You fixed yourself up and you got yourself dinner.”

 

    “Okay. Okay.” Manfred relaxes, though not for very long. But there’s nothing Crosby can do about the fact that it hurts, he’s being as careful as he can.

 

    He can’t put any bandages over anything, but he can’t really tell where he should. He has neosporin which he just has to apply liberally wherever he thinks the skin could be broken. He has arnica gel, which he’s left to slather everywhere else, gentle as he rubs it into every stark bruise.

 

    He gets up to wash his hands, and to rinse the blood out of the washcloth-- not much blood. He’s not sure what he’d have done if it had been more blood. Dry heave again, probably.

 

    He gets a bag of frozen peas from the freezer in the kitchenette, wrapping it in a towel and bringing it over.

 

    “Where do you need the ice?” He asks. “Freddie?”

 

    “What are you doing?” Manfred sighs. Crosby wishes he could see his face in the dark, but his voice sounds… soft, far away.

 

    “I don’t know.”

 

    “Well it’s nice. It’s really nice…” He closes his eyes. Shivers, once, when Crosby just chooses the worst looking bruise to gently press the frozen peas to.

 

    “Sorry.”

 

    “Don’t be. Never… never had someone do any of this stuff before.”

 

    “I meant the cold. Um-- oh. I mean… Freddie…” He can feel his voice threaten to crack and he can’t do that, he can’t let it start, but the idea of him, lying there… All day? Uncared for...

 

    “It’s not like this. I mean the other times we do it. Like he barely ever uses the riding crop and I beg for it. Shit, sorry, you don’t wanna hear about that.”

 

    “I really don’t.”

 

    “But I mean this isn’t… It just looks bad.”

 

    “It’s _bad_ , dude.”

 

    “Me getting beat up sometimes isn’t bad, if it’s fun. But… yeah. Me having a thing for you is pretty bad. So-- so tomorrow morning, when he sees me, I don’t have a thing for you. Then it’s fine.”

 

    A thing. That could cover a lot of territory, Crosby doesn’t know where to start. A thing for him. How is he supposed to pretend tomorrow that he never heard those words? Whatever they mean, how is he supposed to forget them?

 

    “And I don’t have a thing for you.” He nods, and his voice doesn’t sound like his own. “Then it’s fine.”

 

    But Crosby’s always been soft, hasn’t he? That’s why he’s here, bringing Manfred lasagna in bed and taking care of him. Why he can’t stop himself from touching those loose strands of hair, tucked back behind his ear.

 

    “Nice boy…” Manfred sighs. “How’d I ever meet a nice, nice boy?”

 

    “I’m not nice.”

 

    “Uh-huh.”

 

    “Eat your lasagna. C’mon, up. You haven’t had anything but cereal all day, eat.”

 

    “Bossy nice boy. My favorite kind.” Manfred chuckles softly, and only winces a little, and he’s a little out of it. The way he sometimes is, when he stumbles in from the poolhouse in a borrowed robe, so that’s falling into place. Not high, or at least not on drugs. He’s shivering again, even when Crosby takes the frozen peas away.

 

    Crosby helps him get a couple more pillows propped up under himself so that he can lounge and eat. He tucks the covers around him as carefully as he can. And then he should leave, but he doesn’t.

 

    He kisses the top of Manfred’s head, and he breathes in the scent of his hair, more sweat now than shampoo. He wants to remember it.

 

\---

 

32- The Wolf King

 

    Acapulco doesn’t come in until later in the morning than usual. After he and Crosby have both had breakfast, while they’re sitting in the living room, reading, TV on to make the silence more comfortable.

 

    Crosby’s been sulky, but not suspiciously so. He’s keeping an eye on him but what he really wants to keep an eye on is _them_. Crosby doesn’t look up from his book when Acapulco comes in, but then, that doesn’t mean anything on its own.

 

    “Morning. Hey, send housekeeping out to the poolhouse? I left some dishes in the sink and there’s laundry and shit.” Acapulco greets, almost as if yesterday had not happened. He stops short at a look, though. “Please?”

 

    “I’ll let ‘housekeeping’ know.”

 

    “Thanks.” Acapulco says, subdued. Good.

 

    He disappears into the kitchen, and then comes out, shaking a near-empty box of marshmallow cereal.

 

    “Hey, next time there’s not enough for a full bowl, just pour the rest of it out into yours. Don’t get my hopes up. Don’t tell me you couldn’t have eaten this much more.”

 

    “There’s other cereal in the house, just mix them.” Crosby doesn’t look up from his book.

 

    “I don’t want to just mix them, what kind of person puts back just this much cereal?”

 

    Crosby looks up at that, actually looks at Acapulco. Split lip and bruising that a bathrobe won’t hide. Crosby doesn’t flinch, which is surprising, but… maybe a good thing. He just sneers and goes back to his book, that’s good.

 

    “I can’t even look at you right now. Just mix the fucking cereal, asshole, be glad I left you some.”

 

    “Oh, real nice.” Acapulco grumbles, but he disappears back into the kitchen, and returns with a bowl of Cheerios, colorful marshmallows sprinkled over the top. He grabs a cushion and lies down on the floor in front of the TV to eat.

 

    They don’t talk too much… when they do it’s the same old sniping. He keeps a close eye on them anyway, waiting for any potential cracks to show. If it’s all an act for self-preservation, he needs to know.

 

    He doesn’t want to suspect Crosby, of course, but it’s dangerous to discount him just because he’s his son. Oh, he knows what Tommy would say… but if he were here, there wouldn’t be an Acapulco. And Crosby is growing up but he’s still soft… had he been afraid for himself the other day, or had he been afraid for Acapulco? Did the drawings mean something or is Acapulco merely a convenience in all ways?

 

    He sends someone out to pick up dinner, when it starts getting late. Can’t go himself, after all, no knowing what he’d walk back in to… and anyway, why go pick up dinner himself when he can send one of those people he pays to do whatever he asks them to to do it? He’d briefly considered sending Crosby to do it, using the opportunity for a couch blowjob of his own, one which no one would be walking in on, but he’d discarded that thought. There’s nothing appealing about that split lip just healing over. He considers a lot of things that might solidify his hold on one or the other, but for this one day, he settles on watching, and waiting. And, when Crosby is in the bathroom, checking his phone to make sure Acapulco isn’t in his contacts. He is not. And with Acapulco watching him check, he’s not going to be. Not if he has half a brain and an ounce of self-preservation. Once Crosby goes back to college, that’s that, they won’t be in touch. And he can rest a little easier, but he’s going to make sure they aren’t at the house over the same weekends for a while. If Crosby needs his laundry done, Acapulco’s not going to be there.

 

    Acapulco had barely bothered with lunch, but he recovers his appetite when dinner arrives. Hell, Acapulco looks almost _emotional_ over it. Was this what his family used to do? He’d never considered. Acapulco could have come from a Christmas-goose-like-out-of-fuckin-Dickens family or he could have come from a Chinese-restaurant-and-the-movies family or anything in between and he’d have never given it a thought. He wouldn’t be giving it a thought now if there wasn’t the chance of learning something useful.

 

Emotional might be good, provided he remembers who bought the fucking food and who allowed him to stay when he should have been kicked out the other morning and hurt a lot worse than he got when he asked for it.  Asked for so much of it, and he was always greedy, always wanted more than he was going to get, but did he think it would absolve him?

 

    Well. He’d figure it out.

 

\---

  


33- Manfred

 

    He sees Crosby coming across the back lawn towards the poolhouse-- from down by the drop-- on his last day before heading back to school. Soaking in the view, maybe. He’d do the same. Angling towards him, and he moves to meet him at the edge of the wide swath of concrete around the pool. They haven’t had a minute to say goodbye, and this isn’t that minute. When he looks back towards the house, he can see the Wolf King leaning in the open doorway. Watching.

 

    Crosby moves so that his back is to the house, instead of just blowing past him and going in, which would probably be the smart thing to do, but Manfred doesn’t exactly feel very smart.

 

    “Yell at me.” Crosby says. He’s holding a plastic dinosaur in his hand. It might have been red about a decade ago.

 

    “What?”

 

    “Act like you’re mad, yell at me.”

   

    Manfred isn’t very smart, because he just stands there gawking.

 

    “Mean Streets is fucking overrated and it doesn’t stand up against the real classics of the genre.”

   

    “What the hell are you talking about? You bitch!” He howls. Stops. _Oh_. “You _bitch_.”

 

    “Yeah, keep that up.” He whispers, before raising his own voice. “I’m so done right now, dude, I can’t even believe I’m talking to you like this!”

 

    “Oh, oh, you’re done? What, you wanna cry to daddy about it? ‘Cause I’m calling you names? You’re such an asshole sometimes!” He shouts, dropping his. “What’s up?”

 

    “Whatever, tomorrow I won’t be seeing your stupid face around!” Crosby pauses, swallowing hard. “Not for a long time.”

 

    “Yeah, oh, big deal, big shot’s going back to college, I know!”

 

    “No, a long time, Freddie.” He hisses. “Like, I mean it.”

 

    “Don’t you fuckin’ start right now! What, how long? Until spring break?”

 

    “I’m not coming back for spring break. ‘Cause the other day was the biggest mistake of my life! I mean it, I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to think about you, and the next time I’m here I hope you’re history! I can’t-- I can’t watch you with him. Not like this.”

 

    “What?” He can’t think of something to shout. He can’t even breathe. No spring break? That’s like… the anniversary of when they met. They won’t see each other?

 

    “No, _you_ don’t even start! Don’t try to defend what he did, I had to find you like that. Do you know what that was like for me?”

 

    He’s getting whiplash from the things that are for his ears alone and the things meant for the Wolf King.

 

    “Summer, though?” He asks, catching the flash of worry across Crosby’s face when he fails to play his part.

 

    “Don’t be here in the summer, don’t-- You’re temporary okay? He doesn’t love you, you don’t get a fucking happy ending here, just-- _fuck_ , I don’t want to do this right now, I need to pack.” His jaw works a moment, he drops his voice one more time. “Grab the dinosaur and storm off.”

 

    “Do what now?”

 

    “Grab it and storm off. Slam the door. Tell me I don’t know anything right now and just do it.”

 

    “You’re giving me a dinosaur? Hey-- hey, you know what, you don’t know anything! What we got-- or-- Or anything!”

 

    “It’s a good technique.” Crosby whispers, with the saddest smile Manfred thinks he’s ever seen in his life. “It’s unexpected.”

 

    “Oh, _fuck_ you!” He grabs the dinosaur. Hides it in his hand as much as he can and runs back to the poolhouse.

 

INT, DAY- The poolhouse, where Manfred throws himself down on the bed, crying like a little bitch.

 

    But like, in an artistic way.

 

    If it was a movie, Crosby would find him there. Hold his face in those big hands and apologize, as if it wasn’t obvious what was fake. But Manfred isn’t crying because of all the fake stuff and the insults, he’s crying because of the fucking dinosaur and the conversation they’d had, and Fort Crosby and giving him his real name, and because the other morning Crosby had picked out just the marshmallows to drop back into the box and it seemed like it was maybe all of them, and because spring break should have been fucking special and they won’t see each other at all. And he can’t get in touch with him, he can’t call him. He could go to UCLA and wander around campus and he wouldn’t find him, he might not even find anyone who knew him, and if he found him and it turns out he had a fucking bodyguard on campus who would report back to the Wolf King?

 

    And it’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair. He’s the fucking hero of this story, doesn’t he get to have a little happiness?

 

INT, DAY- The poolhouse, where movie Crosby rushes to the bed the moment the Wolf King’s not watching him, and he takes movie Manfred’s face in his hands. Fucking close up on his stupid handsome face and the way his eyes swim ‘cause he never learned not to show everything he’s feeling all the time, fucking tight shot from a low angle of all the ways no one’s ever looked at Manfred Stone before in his life. Fucking music building and you see him leaning in and his eyes flutter closed and then a medium shot on The Kiss, and Crosby’s so fucking tall, and his hands are so big, and he’s holding so much pent-up passion in himself all the time and he just fucking lets it _out_.

 

    Only not, because he can’t even imagine that scene without

 

WOLF KING (O.S.)

And just what do we have here?

 

    And he doesn’t want to think about that, just imagining it sends a chill down his spine. He can see the fear on his own face. They’d be on the bed this time, he’d be under Crosby, it would feel so safe to lie there under Crosby, except it wouldn’t be safe, and neither of them would feel very safe once they got caught.

 

    If he could have thought Crosby didn’t care about him, it might be worth it. One perfect moment, maybe they’d even finish what they’d started, and then he’d face the righteous fury of the Wolf King having tasted something… something. He’d take what was coming to him for getting his filthy hands all over the man’s son. And it would be good, cinematic. The Wolf King’s hand at his throat, but not choking down, just there as he asked for any last words, and Manfred would say ‘you knew what I was when you took me in’, and then his ass would get thrown off a cliff or something.

   

    Well, it would look cool.

 

    Crosby would be upset, though. Which is reason enough to try and find a little self preservation. Crosby, who took care of him not because he needed him for something or because he got paid to, but… like, just because he’s nice. He’s the nicest person Manfred thinks he’s ever going to know, and for some reason he likes him, all… un-nice as he is.

 

    Whatever let a mob boss’ son grow up nice, he doesn’t know whether he’s thankful for it or whether he should curse it. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know how to live six months of his life with no one being nice, actually nice to him, without seeing that familiar scowl or the smile that had barely got to be familiar. But they can’t ever do it again.

 


	12. Breathing Down Your Neck, Boy, it's Sure Hard to Sleep

34- Crosby

 

    Johnny notices something’s wrong right away, and because Johnny’s dads are sensitive, nurturing brain surgeons or whatever, Johnny actually just, like… holds him and tells him he can cry. Which is fucking weird but Crosby doesn’t feel like he has much choice.

 

    “Dude, I think my dad is a bad person.” He says the words into Johnny’s chest.

 

    They still don’t fit really well together on one of the dorm beds, but Johnny holds him there anyway. Lets him scrunch himself up and hide from the world with him there.

 

    “I mean, isn’t he… like, a mobster?”

 

    Right. He’d mentioned that. A good reason to not get drunk off his ass with his friends, if he doesn’t want them all to know. But Johnny isn’t most friends, Johnny’s a best friend, and so even with his law-abiding parents and his law-enforcing godfather, it doesn’t matter. Well, it doesn’t matter as long as Crosby doesn’t talk about working for him himself.

 

    That might matter.

 

    “Yeah, but… I mean, his dad was the boss before him and he-- I don’t know. I always felt like… he didn’t really have a choice, but that doesn’t make him a bad person. Like… he does his best and this is the hand life dealt our family and so he-- Yeah, he’s a ‘bad guy’ if you wanna look at it that way but he’s not a bad person. Or… I mean he’s my _dad_. Isn’t a kid’s dad supposed to be his hero?”

 

    “Yours clearly isn’t in a dad band.”

 

    “One of your dads is in a dad band?” Crosby lifts his head.

 

    “They both are and it’s excruciating. They have tee shirts. Every single song they do is so, like… easy listening. Also I showed you that picture of Pop. I love him but that man was genetically engineered to embarrass people.”

 

    “And by people, you mean you.”

 

    “I mean me.”

 

    “He looks nice though.”

 

    “Yeah. Your dad’s not nice?”

 

    “You know his, um… the guy he has up at the house all the time?”

 

    “The nameless twink?”

 

    “His name’s Manfred. Johnny, I did something so stupid…” He groans. He can feel Johnny freeze, too.

 

    “Shit, what happened?”

 

    “I kissed him.” He buries himself back down against Johnny’s chest, where he doesn’t have to face quite so much of the world, and he leaves out the most-of-a-blowjob that followed. “I kissed him.”

 

    “Holy shit, dude.”

 

    “My dad knows. He knows-- he knows something happened between us.”

 

    “Holy fuckin’ shit, dude. His name is _Manfred_?”

 

    “Shut up, I put him in serious danger. And-- and I don’t hate him.”

 

    For a long moment, Johnny just strokes his back.

 

    “Are you surprised? C’mon, Cros… of course you don’t hate him. I’ve seen your art.” He scratches gently through Crosby’s hair. “How bad a person are we saying your dad might be, over this?”

 

    “Well Dad’s _also_ fucking seen my art and-- It was so bad. It was just… He was gone for a couple days over break, um, he visited my mom and sisters for something and so it was just the two of us alone and like, so stuff happened… And he walked in, and-- Look, I don’t know for sure. I don’t know anything for sure. I just think… if anything happened again, my dad would really hurt him. And he might have-- I don’t know for sure what happened. But I… I know, you know? I know a lot of things I never wanted to know. And I don’t know what to believe.”

 

    “I don’t know, dude.” Johnny sighs. “His name is _Manfred_. That’s such a weird fucking name for a twink.”

 

\---

 

35- The Wolf King

 

    The problem with chasing an endless parade of twinks is that there’s no talking to them. There’s no talking to Acapulco. Not about real things.

 

    But… that’s the saving grace of an endless parade of twinks, too. Well, that and the looks and the energy and the flexibility and the willingness-- eagerness, even-- to please. He doesn’t _want_ to talk to them.

 

    He doesn’t want to drive out to some lookout point over Huntington and bare his soul to some twenty-something with a tight ass. Put on the radio soft and talk about the meaning of life? No.

 

    He did that when he _was_ twenty-something, he’s done. Anything real he has to say he can say to himself, no one else is going to understand. Not really.

 

    Oh, he can try with Crosby, when he grows up, when he straightens himself out, when he’s not so… soft and soppy about things. He’s getting there. And it would do them good to have a man-to-man about what’s real in the world, it would do Crosby good to pick up something real, but when do you know what a kid is ready to hear? You give them empty platitudes when you know they can’t take in the real stuff, but when does the shift come if you spend all that time feeding them pap? But that’s different. Passing down important truths to your son, that’s one of those duties and you get to it eventually. That’s not opening up to someone. Passing down information isn’t the same as handing it sideways. Handing it sideways is what he can’t do.

 

    When you’re twenty-something, you can pluck someone out of the pool of young men with guns who work for your father, and tell him he works for you now, tell him you need a little extra protection and ask him to get in the car and drive. And you can watch the sun set over the ocean, and whisper things to him you’ve never told your wife. And sure, you’re the boss and you’ll know he won’t laugh, but there are things you can’t predict, like the breathless way he tells you you understand so much he never even thought about. Like the way you’ll feel when he calls you ‘spiritual’.

 

    He’d tried it once. The first boy he took to bed when the open wound had scabbed over. Didn’t take him out for a drive, that would have been wrong, trying to recreate the moment. Only whispered things to him in bed, real things, and was met with a graceless ‘huh’. It made everything feel wrong. It left him with such a sense of wrongness he was begging the universe to send someone to wrong _him_ just so he could balance the scales again.

 

    He had understood it all at that age, why shouldn’t he have expected someone else to? They had understood it all, watching the waves roll in under the setting sun, and he’d held the answer to the beginning and the ending of all life in the palm of his hand.

 

    And if that young man with a gun were here, he’d have the answer to when to pass things down. What to do about Crosby being soft. What to do about Crosby and Acapulco-- though again, that wouldn’t have happened…

 

    He keeps a close eye on Acapulco whenever he has him. He’s different. He’s on his phone more, making deals more… and that’s fair. That’s fair, but there’s a long list of things that wouldn’t be. And there’s a voice in the back of his head that tells him against all better instincts to go easy on the kiddo, and that leaves Acapulco.

 

\---

 

36- Manfred

 

    The thing is, the sex is still good.

 

    Oh, things have changed. He can tell he’s not forgiven. But the Wolf King doesn’t do anything he hasn’t asked for, doesn’t push through any of his limits, such as they are. The sex is the same as it ever was, for the most part. Maybe that one night was bad, even if he can’t think it was so bad as Crosby had thought it was. Maybe the Wolf King didn’t care about whether he asked for it or not that night… maybe probably. Okay, so fine. But things don’t stay like that.

 

    And even when they were like that… fuck if he hadn’t gotten off so hard to it, if it hadn’t been the best they’d ever had, and he knows that’s sick, he knows that’s a problem, but it had been _good_. His heart might belong to a nice boy, but the rest of him still needed a bad, bad man.

 

    He never loved the Wolf King, but he’d needed him. He’d needed attention from him. He’d become so important somehow, even if love never entered into things, just for being what he was. And now he’s here-- and the sex is still good, but there are no more sweet little whispers of ‘honey’ and ‘baby’ in his ear. No more invitations to cuddle up in Daddy’s lap. No little presents, and look, he can buy his own shit, but it’s not about the money, it’s about the attention. And the Wolf King watches him closer than ever, but he’s not sweet to him the way he used to be. Maybe that’s Manfred’s own fault, sure, he’s done something very hard to forgive, but… he misses sitting in the man’s lap. Misses just being petted at.

 

    Not his hair. He cut that, end of December. Said he couldn’t ask to be taken seriously looking like a metalhead college dropout wearing his old man’s suit. The Wolf King only smiled at him like he knew better, when he saw.

 

    He wonders what Crosby would think of it. If he’d think anything. If he would still touch it, now.

 

    He tries not to let himself imagine Crosby’s lap, Crosby’s arms. Every once in a while he succeeds.

 


	13. Don't You Want to Forget Someone Too

37- Crosby

 

    He talks to his dad often enough. Comes home with laundry a couple weekends, gets calls now and then. Manfred never comes up and Crosby knows better than to ask.

 

    He spends spring break with his friends, they go down to Mexico. It’s fun, it’s not that it isn’t fun. It’s not that he hasn’t had fun. He doesn’t spend all his time pining but he spends a lot of his time worrying. He has dreams about the darkened poolhouse and Manfred lying naked on top of the covers. Not every night or anything, but often enough he can’t forget.

 

    He and Johnny get away from the others a few times, or they hook up with other people. He thinks he should feel something about it, but all he ever feels is like he’s desperate for a distraction, because if the dream comes back, he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He hooks up with a film student who’s, like, a full foot shorter than he is, and he has the dream again.

 

    He calls home in the morning, and he doesn’t ask about Manfred. Doesn’t know what he was hoping to hear.

 

    Johnny knows about the dream. Johnny doesn’t know how rooted in reality it is. He can’t bear to make it as real as admitting the state he found Manfred in would make it, even now. If he talks about that, he has to talk about the kink thing, and he cannot think about that. It’s better than the alternative, but that’s still his dad. He doesn’t want to face either possibility, he doesn’t want winter break to have been real…

 

    He doesn’t regret kissing him. The blowjob, yeah, he regrets letting that happen, or letting it happen in the living room. If they’d been in his room, they might not have been caught. Or it would have been different. Except he’s pretty sure if they were caught in his bedroom, it would have been worse. It would have been too obviously deliberate, not the kind of thing that happens by accident. He’d never let Manfred in his room before, if he took him back there for that, it would have been…

 

    He doesn’t want to think about that.

 

    He thinks about the kiss. He thinks about the kiss too often-- over spring break, usually while he’s kissing other guys. He thinks back to it when he wakes up from having the dream again and tries to think of where he could have done something differently. If he could have stopped them, without knowing what would happen, if he could have stopped himself. If he could have pulled back after that kiss and been responsible. He knows Manfred couldn’t be-- he doesn’t have a responsible bone in his body, he’s a total disaster, but… but he needs somebody. And he makes Crosby feel like somebody. He makes Crosby feel needed… looks at him with those big green eyes, like the fact that he can make even the simplest thing in the kitchen makes him a fucking superman, like lending him a hoodie is some kind of unparalleled gift…

 

    He makes Crosby feel like he’s good at life. Which he’s not, or he wouldn’t have said yes to a blowjob on the couch from his dad’s boy toy, but they’d had the house to themselves and they had been just them and it had been…

 

    He’d been Freddie, and Freddie wasn’t gross, just lonely. Just used to being used. Just… like Crosby. And Johnny could have been Crosby’s boyfriend in another universe, but in this one, they’re not, and Johnny is great and he’s glad he knows him. He’d even say he loves him in their own way, as his best friend. Johnny doesn’t need him, though. Johnny makes him feel like a regular guy. And he needs that, too, but… but Freddie _needs_ someone, and that someone isn’t his dad. That someone should be him.

 

    Even when he drops by the house unannounced after spring break, he doesn’t catch Manfred there. And he doesn’t think it’s a friendly suggestion, when his dad says ‘you should have called’.

 

\---

 

38- Manfred

 

    Winter dragged on. Spring drags on. And apparently Manfred is still young enough and pretty enough for the Wolf King to keep. He’s pretty enough without his hair. He tries growing out a goatee, while he’s out working on deals, because the Wolf King doesn’t like when he gets scruffy. He chickens out and shaves it off before going back to the house.

 

    He wants out, and he doesn’t.

 

    If he got out, where would he go?

 

    He’s not living in the same crappy apartment, that’s something. He’s got too much going on for that, and he’s spending less time at the house.

 

    He still doesn’t want to be at his place alone all the time. He still doesn’t want to get off with a series of strangers. There’s only one person who knows how to take him exactly where he needs to get, and for better or worse, that person is the Wolf King. Who doesn’t shower him with gifts and pull him into his lap, but who still kisses him in bed. Still slips him coke sometimes and sometimes when he does, he ruffles his hair.

 

    There are worse people than the Wolf King. He knows that because he’s sold to them. He’s blown a couple of them. That was a mistake.

 

    Crosby wasn’t. The time and place, yeah, but not Crosby-- not the way some guys are. Crosby was only a mistake because of his dad, not because of him. Manfred’s met guys who would honestly hurt him if they thought they could get away with it and get a piece of what he has. Not like the Wolf King, who… okay, so he’s not a good guy and he’s definitely not selfless, but the Wolf King’s subtle and he at least has a good side to get on. He wouldn’t stab you in the back if he could get what he wanted without lifting a finger. He’s dangerous because he’s smart, but Manfred would rather live with that than deal with someone who’s dangerous because he’s stupid. The thing is, he knows he can’t run around outsmarting the Wolf King, he knows his limits. But you put him in a room with a smart guy and at least he stays in his place and stays alive, even if it’s just because he’s being manipulated into it. In the room with another over-emotional coked up dumbass with a gun, he’d probably get himself killed.

 

    It happens, of course, in his line of work. But he can afford people to have his back now. Not as many as the Wolf King, but enough to keep his ass safe when he’s got a volatile client.

 

    Maybe he looks up when Crosby will get out of school. Maybe the night before he calls the Wolf King up and begs to come over, says he needs to get high and get fucked and he’ll do anything he wants. Sometimes he’s ignored completely until he leaves, after, but he’s never booted out before the next morning-- he’s rarely booted out even after a few days, unless there’s something important going down and the Wolf King really doesn’t want the distraction.

 

    “Get me high tonight, Daddy, and I promise I’ve got something sitting in a warehouse you’re going to love.” He says, in the most desperate purr he can put on, and that seals the deal. The Wolf King loves free shit as much as the next guy, and he especially loves giving him a line before they negotiate a deal.

 

    But this time, this time Manfred’s got him outsmarted, because he _knows_ he doesn’t remember which day Crosby’s coming home, and he can afford to take the fucking loss on some ammo. He knows what the fucking wolf pack is packing, he knows what to outfit them with.

 

    He knows what Crosby has. And it’s nice, it’s a nice piece… oh, he could get him something better, but he’s not stupid enough to try, and even if he was… that’s no kind of gift for a nice boy. But he’ll slip an extra box of ammo in for him and make it a part of the deal and that’ll be good enough.

 

    He arranges the delivery, because he knows what he has and he knows what the Wolf King will push him for if he offers less than what he’s got. They’ve done this song and dance before. He pre-writes the note, even, because he knows he’ll forget, and the Wolf King won’t know when he did it-- ‘thanks for the good time, Daddy’, even though the fawning and the ‘Daddy’ don’t win him over like they used to. The nickname is back on, anyway, the moratorium has passed. He adds a little ‘XOXO’ and signs his own nickname a lot sloppier than he needs to. It looks like he was fucking flying when he wrote it, because if he were sober, he would just write ‘pleasure doing business with you- M. Stone’, because they both know the cutesy shit no longer flies. But when he’s high-- or when he’s desperate to get high-- well, he falls back on it and the Wolf King lets him.

 

    He sits on the edge of his bed, hand closed around his good luck charm, and he mentally prepares himself for the losing deal and everything that’s coming with it. And for the one thing that’s going to make it all worth it in the end.

 

    “Freddie.” He tells himself, thumb tracing a seam in the cracked plastic. “You’re either a fucking genius, or you’re the dumbest son of a bitch on earth. Time to go find out which.”

 

\---

 

39- The Wolf King

  


    Acapulco really _is_ desperate. His driver drops him off at the bottom of the drive and he makes his way up, wearing a suit that’s just going to have to _go_ , and he can tell from a long way off just how jittery he is. Jonesing hard, twitchy, probably a little paranoid.

 

    He has been going harder… going harder for a while now. Asking for a high or just a drink, asking for it to be rougher more often. Asking to be hit again.

 

    Sometimes the Wolf King grants him his requests. Never the last one. No, that one has to stay… _special_. He likes it rough now and then, and if he’s in the mood then Acapulco can have it. Hell, he might even dig through the toybox for him. But if he goes on slapping him across the face when he asks, then Acapulco might get to thinking that’s just a fun thing they do, and not a serious punishment for a serious transgression.

 

    He slides an arm around him when he gets up to the house, more than he’s done since that winter when Acapulco betrayed him. Whatever’s in that warehouse, he wants it. And more.

 

    “Well hello there, baby boy. I’ve got something for you, if you’ve got something for me.” He greets. The purr is inviting. The grin is dangerous. Acapulco is a sucker for both.

 

    “Something real good, Daddy.” He promises, pawing at the Wolf King’s chest, already so eager. “Got everything I need so we can put it in writing, I want you to know I’d never promise you something I don’t have.”

 

    Acapulco pats at his own jacket, something in an inside pocket rustling.

 

    “Oh, baby, why don’t you get a little taste of yours first? Come on out to the poolhouse with me, I think you’ll like what I got for you. Its… it’s very hard to get. Well, for anyone who’s not me.”

 

    Acapulco swallows. His eyes go wide. A little nod. Perfect.

 

    Everything’s already set up out there. Acapulco takes his medicine, and then he gets out his paperwork. He’s unfocused, but energetic, the good stuff kicks in nice and fast for him even with the resistance he’s built to the high over the months. A hand on his crotch and he agrees to everything the Wolf King asks for, answers questions about his inventory he might have wanted to keep secret, but he’s forgotten why now that the world is sparkling.

 

    Good.

   

    And the test. Acapulco asks him what Crosby carries and if he needs something different than what the rest of the boys have. He tells him. Suggests Acapulco throw in something special for the kiddo, maybe upgrade him to a better class of firearm, isn’t he fond of him? He names something extravagant, something a bit too much to give up for free on top of the rest, unless Acapulco had an interest in him.

 

    “You can have a gun if you want one, Daddy, but you know he’s too soft for one of those.” Acapulco snorts. “He doesn’t want a bigger gun. Oh, but I do. I want a look at what _you’re_ packing.”

 

    Crude, there at the end, but… the right answer. Or, not the wrong one. If he’d jumped to do Crosby a favor, well… it would warrant a continued eye, they’d cross paths at some point over the summer if he didn’t keep Crosby busy enough, and Crosby’s not ready to be that busy on dear old dad’s behalf. Not that he can forget about what’s happened between them, discount the possibility of it happening again. They’d fought over something before Crosby left for school, but they’ve had a lot of time to forget that fight, and the summer was a lot of time for something new to happen…

 

    He lets Acapulco have a look at what he’s packing. Not a gun, but the boy is happy to find it… He misses the ponytail. The ponytail was so _fun_. But he still gets a good grip and they still have a good time.

 


	14. Taking This One to the Grave

40- Crosby

 

    “Dad, I’m home!” Crosby calls.

 

    It feels like forever since he’s been _home_ , even with the odd weekends to do some laundry, cook for his dad, put up some things in the freezer that anyone could fix with him not there… All those weekends had been so strained, somehow. Not the way things were after the Incident, but… not like being home should feel.

 

    He doesn’t get an answer, but he hears cereal being poured, so he drops his bags in the entryway and turns right, and gets as far as the breakfast nook before seeing… _him_.

 

    “Oh, hey. Crosby.” Manfred smiles. Looks post-high glazed, his robe open over the same green silk shorts he’d been wearing, winter break, when they’d…

 

    He’d never gotten under them. They never got that far.

 

    “He’s in the office.” He adds.

 

    “ _Freddie_.” Two steps and he’s _there_ , he can’t touch him, the office means nothing, his dad could come back from the office at any moment, but he can look at him. His hair… “Oh, Freddie-- shit, dude, I wish-- I mean… You look...”

 

    “Daddy gave me the good stuff last night, I’m still… But I knew you’d be here today. I knew you’d be here today so I had to be here last night. And he gives me the good stuff, still, if I ask for it. If I can pay for it with what he wants.”

 

    “Don’t--”

 

    “I mean, like, guns and shit.” He says, but his face is red and there’s no way he doesn’t also mean sex.

 

    “You ask for the good stuff a lot?” Crosby frowns.

 

    “Yeah. Being sober kind of sucks for me right now. But I got a boat. You wanna see my boat?”

 

    “Dude, you know I’m never going-- You know you can’t take me anywhere to show me anything.”

 

    “Oh. Yeah. Guess not. Guess not. I’m still… You want some cereal? It’s just, like… fuckin’ healthy grown-up shit. Shoulda brought my own groceries but that would have been suspicious.” He laughs. “But sometimes he lets me stay a while still, I could get you cereal.”

 

    “No-- Dude. Just… sober up and don’t say anything to get yourself in trouble. Just… get sober, okay? For me?”

 

    “For you. ‘Cause you’re a nice boy.” Manfred bites his lip, gets that old come-on look, not the one Crosby hadn’t been able to hold out against, but the one he’d get when he was high… which he still is, apparently. “Nice boy…”

 

    “Don’t. Fuck, if he walked in and saw you like this with me, do you understand what I’m saying?”

 

    Something falls away, the come-on, the smile, the energy. “I missed you over spring break. I just missed you. I missed you between Thanksgiving and winter, too, and I-- I just missed you.”

 

    “You cut your hair.” And Crosby reaches out, like a moron, because he can’t help himself.

 

    “Used to be shorter. Cut it real short. Looks better now.”

 

    “Freddie…”

 

    It still feels like it did then, only short. Soft between his fingers. Too short to curl at the ends the way it did when it was long, it just sort of sticks out everywhere.

 

    “It looks better now. I mean, yeah? I mean-- You like it?”

 

    “I like it.” He nods, pulling his hand back. “You’re still a disaster. But it’s good.”

 

    “Got a nice boy to fix me now.”

 

    He’ll never be able to put him back together if they slip again, in front of his dad. There are things beyond his ability to fix.

 

    “Yeah you do.” He says. “Go get your milk, I gotta put my stuff away. Hey… it’s good to see you in one piece. But you know how things have to be between us. When he’s around, you know, right? You remember.”

 

    “We gotta be assholes.”

 

    “We gotta be assholes.”

 

    He leaves Manfred to his cereal, is hauling his bags down the hall towards his room when he sees his dad come out of the office further ahead, and sees the flash of surprise. The tension at his jaw.

   

    “I thought you were home next week.”

 

    “Nope. It’s today.”

 

    “Mm. Planned for next week. Sorry, kiddo, I’ll have to send someone out for groceries.”

 

    “It’s not a big deal. I can go get groceries, even.”

 

    His dad nods, slowly. “That might be a good idea. That’ll give me some time to take care of a couple things here. So we can celebrate you being home for the summer. Do that right.”

 

    “I could fire up the grill tonight. Pick up a couple steaks or whatever you want.”

 

    They both relax, at least somewhat. He’d remembered to say ‘a couple’, to pretend he doesn’t know Manfred’s around. Or at least that he doesn’t expect to feed him. The right move, as far as he can tell.

 

    “Oh, you’re the one who just got home from college, you pick up what you want. You on the right track for that degree?”

 

    “Yes, Sir. I think so.”

 

    “Good. Go ahead and get your stuff stowed and pick up anything you want for this week. Promise I’ve got your favorites written down for next week.”

 

    “Thanks, Dad.” He smiles, and he hates himself for smiling-- because it’s a real smile, because after everything the idea that he really did have a list for next week makes up for the fact he wasn’t ready this week, that he never has the date right.

 

    He puts his things away, mostly. Starts putting them away and then he pulls out his hoodie and just… leaves the rest. He considers taking it with him, hanging it up by the front door where, well, anyone could take it. But they can’t do that, he’d be setting Manfred up for a fall, dangling it out there. He can’t give it to him, he can’t let him just take it.

 

    He doesn’t see him on his way out again. He doesn’t know if he’ll be there when he gets back. Maybe he shouldn’t have volunteered to go, but it’s safer if his dad shuffles Manfred off… it’s safer if he just keeps them apart. It tears at him, when he thinks about Manfred admitting to missing him before winter break, even, and how could he ever say he hadn’t felt… Well, maybe not then, maybe not that he was aware of, but his piece for the spring show speaks for itself.

 

    It’s just as well his dad never did come to the show. He’d added a split lip and bruising to his finished piece, kept the look of all the rest. Changed the title. Someone bought it. He’d be proud of that except the idea of telling his dad he sold it and reminding him of those sketches he’d seen…

 

    He buys cereal. He buys two steaks because he’s the idiot who brought up steak. He also buys some hamburger because he can’t not feed him but he can’t give up half a steak. Not in front of his dad. He can say ‘thanks a lot asshole, now there goes tomorrow’, and make him a burger, which for some reason he likes overdone, and he shouldn’t even _remember_ that. He does, he does, he remembers everything.

 

    He remembers last spring and being told he’d be hot in twenty years. He remembers hiding an erection at the dinner table. He remembers last summer and the contentious time-share of the pool, and how warm Manfred’s hands were.

 

    He buys popsicles. He remembers that, too. He’s playing with fire, but there’s no reason he shouldn’t buy them.

 

    He buys stuff for making s’mores, which… Well, he buys the stuff, and why shouldn’t he? He buys stuff, he buys what he wants, and it doesn’t matter if someone else will be at the house who will want to do those things with him. He doesn’t know if someone is, that’s the whole point of everything, as far as his dad knows, he never saw Manfred, and even having seen him, he doesn’t know if he’ll be there when he gets back.

 

\---

 

41- The Wolf King

 

    Well shit.

 

    This weekend? This weekend?

 

    Shit.

 

    No. No, this is fine. This is…

 

    This is fine.

 

    He just needs to watch them, that’s all. It was bound to happen.

 

    He finds Acapulco in the living room eating cereal. Familiar. Normal. Fine. Still a little high… or close enough to it, coming down.

 

    “Hi, Daddy.” He greets, winks, there’s an indication of how out of it he is, if he’s bothering with the act. There are no masks anymore. They know exactly what they are and it’s not pretty, but they both still need it, don’t they?

 

    “Do you know what today is?”

 

    Acapulco snorts. “I’m not gonna know that until tomorrow. So no. You got me… really gone.”

 

    “You haven’t heard anyone come in?” He presses. Acapulco should have been jumping out of his skin over the front door, he’s always a little… extra bit paranoid, about people coming in unexpectedly.

 

    “Nn… Maybe? But I was… in the other room. I was ready for the, you know, I was ready for the guys with guns and… no one, like, came in? I don’t know, sometimes I hear the door and it’s not real, though, but I didn’t spill shit or break shit or anything.”

 

    “Okay, well, Crosby’s home from college for the summer, so… best behavior, baby, or you’re not going to be real welcome around here. Sober enough to understand that one?”

 

    “I’m starting to come down.” Acapulco nods, more slowly.

 

    “That does mean don’t jump on him. If I catch one of your hands where it shouldn’t be, it will be removed. And, uh… if I catch something other than a hand, where it shouldn’t be? Well.”

 

    He looks markedly more sober now.

 

    “Best behavior.” He swallows. “Is he here? Should I, do I say hi, or do I not say hi?”

 

    “He’ll be here. And you can say whatever you like. But it had better be something you wouldn’t want to hide from me. Because there’s no hiding from me in my house.”

 

    “Nothing _to_ hide.”

 

    “Good. Keep it that way.”

 

\---

 

42- Manfred

 

    He can’t quite believe he’s still here. It’s a trap, he’s sober enough to get that, it’s a trap or a test or something like that. He’s not here because the Wolf King trusts him, he’s here because he doesn’t, and he wants to know how right he is to distrust him.

 

    He doesn’t know when he and Crosby will get a minute alone, but the Wolf King can’t stay out of his office forever. And he knows they can’t touch, he knows they can’t let it happen again, but he just wants to be able to talk to him. He just wants to lean against the counter watching him cook, he wants to borrow his apron to help. He wants to watch him swim.

 

    He wants all the secret moments they had before he fucked everything up by actually going and sucking his dick. Which he doesn’t regret, not really, but which did fuck everything up, there’s no denying that. To be safe with his nice boy and to hear Crosby call him ‘Freddie’ because no one else does.

 

    At least he’s coming down slow enough that when he startles right off the sofa at the sound of the front door, it’s not unexpected.

 

    “Dad, I’m home!” Crosby calls.

 

    “Kiddo, we’ve got some, uh… surprise company for dinner tonight. You don’t mind, though, do you? Maybe the three of us just… celebrate another year of college done, together?” The Wolf King calls back.

 

    “Company?” Crosby’s voice, from the vicinity of the kitchen. Steady. Strong. “Wish you’d texted me, I only bought two steaks! Who is it?”

 

    But he pokes his head through the doorway, bag of groceries in the crook of his arm, and their eyes meet.

 

    “Hey. Guess who and shit.” Manfred gives him a little wave.

 

    “When’d you get the big boy haircut?” Crosby sneers, and maybe he’d rehearsed that, but it looks good enough. Like they never ran into each other. Like they don’t have any fond fucking memories.

 

    “New year, new me.” He shrugs. “I’m a big deal now. I got a yacht and shit. Life sized self portrait over the desk an’ like… I dunno, rich guy stuff.”

 

    “Well I see you’re dressing for success.” Crosby rolls his eyes.

 

    “Hey, I wore these for someone special. Don’t get all bent out of shape because you’re jealous.” He winks. He’s not lying, anyway. Whether or not Crosby would even remember what he was wearing on the morning they spectacularly fucked up everything, well… All that matters is how it sounds to the Wolf King, they both know that.

 

    “I’m not jealous, dude. I have absolutely no reason to be.” He snorts, and if that isn’t the truth in the worst way… “I’ve only got two steaks, so… I’m gonna have to figure something out for dinner now. Like, you’re fuckin’ lucky I’m feeding you at all, but if my dad still wants to keep you around… whatever.”

 

    “Oh, yeah. I’m so fuckin’ lucky you’re nice.”

 

    For a moment, he thinks he’s crossed a line. He can’t exactly tell what’s just flashed across Crosby’s face, but it’s not safe, it’s not irritation or disgust. It’s not sweet or smiley or anything stupid like that, but he’s afraid it’s something the Wolf King could catch and disapprove of. But Crosby just turns on his heel and goes back to the kitchen with his groceries.

 

    “You really can’t play nice, can you?” The Wolf King chuckles, but it sounds… off. “Well. I guess you know exactly one way to play nice. So maybe I shouldn’t complain.”

 

    “Just trying to keep you happy. Not really a ‘nice guy’ setting on this machine.” He gestures to himself, stretching out on the couch. “I’ll be good, though. I can do that. For you. For Daddy.”

 

    “You think you can do that? Well…” The Wolf King chuckles again, and this time it doesn’t sound off, but it doesn’t sound very nice, either. “Keep me happy this weekend and we’ll see about… we’ll see where we stand. See, I like having you around, honey, and I like to have my fun, but I think you know why I don’t really _trust_ you to stay around the house this summer. So why don’t you _prove_ to me you know how to behave? Hm?”

 

    “I will. I’ll be real good.” He promises. He can do that… keep his spot here. Be back in the Wolf King’s good graces to boot and get the little touches and the sweetness he’s been denied. Maybe there is no good solution to this… maybe they’re all trapped. And maybe it’s wrong to take everything he can get from the Wolf King and still want Crosby. It’s not the worst thing he’s ever done in his life. He doesn’t believe that. The relationship makes it a little more complicated, but falling for a guy’s not wrong. You don’t get to pick who you fall for. He’s not about to feel guilty for it when he’s killed people and he doesn’t feel guilty about that. Nobody in a position to get killed by him is the kind of person you feel guilty about killing.

 

    Maybe there’s innocents in the bigger game, but he doesn’t really think about that. That’s on the buyer, not the seller, in his opinion.


	15. I Time Every Journey

43- The Wolf King

 

    Crosby digs through the pantry and looks at what he’s bought, and comes up with a solution, anyway. He’s not bad at that, he _can_ think past the plans he makes-- in this case, plan B is fajitas, which… fine, no complaints. The problem with Crosby is, he can’t stop bitching about being forced into a plan B in the first place.

 

    Did he spoil him? He’s never thought so, no, he’s made him work for everything. Made him earn it. He’s seen what happens when you don’t make them earn it, you get an heir who doesn’t learn a damn thing about the business, like Hector, and then if you’re lucky you have a backup who’s had to work for everything and knows how to handle things. He wasn’t spoiled, when he was young, and he hasn’t spoiled Cros, but maybe he let him be a little protected… a little too much. Treated him like the baby even in the absence of his older sisters. Or, well…

 

    Well, so he let Tommy be soft on the kiddo. Let him do perimeter sweeps around Crosby’s bedroom after nightmares when he should have told him it wasn’t real and to go back to sleep, and stuff like that. But the kid was, what, six years old? He followed the path of least resistance-- two minutes of Tommy aiming an unloaded gun into the closet and under the bed demanding any monsters clear out meant there wasn’t five minutes of sniffling and pleading.

 

    But other than that. Kid wasn’t even in the double digits, that didn’t make him soft. No one thing… no one thing.

 

    “Kind of thought he wouldn’t be around anymore, that’s all.” Crosby says, maybe the fifth time over the course of his making dinner that he’s mentioned not having planned for Acapulco and not wanting him at the house.

 

    And… there’s a thought. Was it sabotage? Trying to get rid of Acapulco, by setting him up to betray Daddy? Thinking then Acapulco would be out, and… and what? Well, and then Crosby wouldn’t see him swimming naked or seducing the old man, wouldn’t have to share the couch and the cereal and dear old dad’s attention, it was…

 

    Crosby couldn’t have known he would come home when he did. But maybe that hadn’t been the only time. Well, he’d accounted for the fact that there might have been other times, though they both denied it, but suppose Crosby had been lulling Acapulco into a false sense of security in order to jeopardize his place? They’d had that rivalry, maybe this made more sense than believing they somehow came to enjoy each other’s company over just a couple of days of his being gone…

 

    He won’t cling to this explanation over all others, just because it’s the prettiest one. Goodness knows Acapulco would put his mouth on anything you waved in front of his face, but did Crosby have that Machiavellian streak in him? That’s the thought that intrigues him-- not so much that it’s alluring to think his son wouldn’t betray him, that there’s no danger of the two of them being truly involved, but that the idea of Crosby living up to him there… doing something perhaps distasteful in order to be rid of a rival, that he can respect. He can respect it just as much even if it does mean, well… betraying him a little bit, but not in a serious way.

 

    He can respect this potential. But he can’t trust in it.

 

    Acapulco is behaving himself. Down from his high, but oh so hopeful-- the little bit of attention he’d received, that slight reminder of the days before his betrayal? That has him working so hard. Oh, he’s not… not nice, no, he was right about that, it’s impossible. He teases a bit, enjoys being snapped at a little too much, but he figures out where the line is and he stays to his side of it. He apologizes frequently-- to the Wolf King, if not to the son he’s antagonizing-- poses and bats his lashes and goes right back to all the things that used to win him a little bit of attention now and then, Before.

 

    He doesn’t give him too much. But he gives him a smile here, a nod there. He doesn’t give him all the indulgence he used to. He gives him hope.

 

    And if he needs to, he can yank it right back away again.

 

\---

 

44- Manfred

 

    He asks, after dinner, if the Wolf King wants him to stay, gets a yes. One weekend, one weekend he watches himself as carefully as he knows the Wolf King is watching. He gets a little bit high his last night, goes all out to make that man happy, and then in the morning he goes home and makes sure the Wolf King’s shipment is set to get to him.

 

    He sleeps on the yacht and waits for a call. He knows better than to invite himself back too fast while Crosby is there.

 

    He sleeps better on the yacht. When he’s out at sea and anchored somewhere, and it’s very hard for anyone to get to him, he sleeps. He has an apartment, which he mostly uses for an office. A much nicer apartment than the one he used to go back to, but he still doesn’t like going back to it. Now that he can let the waves rock him to sleep knowing it’s not a matter of getting past the doorman to get to him, it’s… better. Or, it makes up for the increase in paranoia.

 

    The apartment is where he keeps the fancy art and the expensive shit and all the things he wants the people who work for him or through him to see and be impressed by. The key to fancy art for impressing people, as far as he can tell, is to buy abstract shit from people who aren’t famous yet, and to say you discovered them. And if they don’t get famous fast enough, you can say they’re unappreciated in their time, maybe, but as long as a sculpture doesn’t look like fucking anything at all, people think you’ve got taste somehow.

 

    He keeps ‘The Martyr’ back in his bedroom where he doesn’t let people go and where he doesn’t sleep. He’d shelled out the asking price the second he saw it, on paper he guesses it was bought by Hampton Stone II. Which is probably for the best and all. He’d bought it on a whim without thinking about whether or not he could live with it. It turns out he can’t.

 

    He keeps himself on the yacht, where the little recessed shelves by his bed hold a handful of magazines and a single book, and a plastic dinosaur that used to be red. Where he doesn’t have to look into The Martyr’s face when he just wants to try to sleep. Which is fucking impossible because of the window and the one slat in the blinds that he can never fix and the way the light and shadows play tricks on his mind with it. He can live with it fine during the day, when it just looks the way it looks. It just gives him the heebie-jeebies when it seems to change at night.

 

\---

 

45- Crosby

 

    Things are mostly normal, his first week back. Things are normal with his dad, things are like the summer before. Some time to himself, some visits to the gun range, the occasional bit of new information about how business is going… not a lot, not as much as he’d like to handle, but he feels good about the direction they’re going. Maybe going off on spring break was just what was needed, some time and distance after the disastrous Incident, but he’s still trusted. Or trusted again. And if his dad can trust him, then he’ll have to trust Manfred.

 

    For about a week, he doesn’t see him. That first weekend, and then it feels like forever until he heads to the kitchen for breakfast and hears the game show network from the living room.

 

    His dad’s not there, but they still can’t relax. Still… He gets his cereal and he tucks himself into his end of the couch sideways, knees up and feet planted on the middle seat. Near enough to touch, the way Manfred always flops himself out.

 

    “Hey.” He looks over, something uncertain flickering across his face. “Morning.”

 

    “Hey.” Crosby smiles. They’re alone, he can smile. Even if it’s only for now, even if he has to keep an ear on the hallway. “I missed you, too. Over spring break. And at school. I know we-- we can’t be… I don’t know. Anything. But I missed this. You yelling at Gene Rayburn and shit.”

 

    “Yeah. Too bad Daddy’d kill me if I tried to run away with you. We could yell at Gene Rayburn together. Like in a house somewhere.”

 

    “Smooth. Real smooth. That’s what every boy longs to hear.” He snorts. It has to be a joke, he has to treat it like a joke, because if it isn’t a joke… His dad really might kill Manfred, if they were stupid enough to try it.

 

    A foot slides over to rest against his.

 

    “What can I say? I’m a romantic.”

 

    “Freddie…”

 

    “Cros.”

 

    “Are you sober?”

 

    “Yeah.”

 

    “Good. Stay that way?”

 

    “I can’t… Like-- you don’t know what it’s like when you’re not here. And you don’t want to, okay? I can’t.”

 

    “Don’t wreck yourself… don’t let him do this to you. Just… be safe, like, be remotely safe.”

 

    “Don’t care about me too much, ‘cause it’s not gonna work out for you.” He shakes his head, but his foot nudges up against Crosby’s a little more. “I mean, fuck, Cros, you’re--”

 

    “Don’t, don’t say it.”

 

    “Well, you are.” He sighs. “You know what you are. Like, to me.”

 

    Crosby smiles in spite of himself, nudging his foot back against Manfred’s. “Yeah. I know. And you-- Shit, the door, fight me over the leg room.”

 

    “You have really good hearing-- okay, okay, all right-- I don’t see what the big deal is, you’re just doing this to piss me off!”

 

    “I have longer legs, dude, I deserve more space.”

 

    “But you actually sit up, like… fuckin’ normal, like you are literally just doing this to piss me off right now!”

 

    “What are you going to do if I am?” He laughs, pushing against Manfred’s shin a little. “What are you going to do about it? You gonna run and tell my dad I’m being mean to you?”

 

    “I don’t need to go crying to Daddy every time I’m inconvenienced, so--”

 

    “It’s, like, all you ever do.” He says, but he wants to say ‘don’t fucking laugh’, because laughing over being antagonized is not what Manfred does, and he can feel his dad over his shoulder, watching them, and he can see the corner of Manfred’s lips twitch. His dad can’t see that. He’s waiting for that little warning ‘play nice’ and it’s not coming…

 

    Manfred looks past his shoulder and straightens up anyway, and so Crosby turns, relaxing into the space that had been vacated.

   

    “Hey, Dad.” He nods. “Morning. You need me for something today?”

 

    “No, no… you go ahead and take today for… whatever.” His dad nods back, spares a glance over to Manfred. “I don’t actually have anything, uh, very pressing to do today myself.”

 


	16. Is He Rich Like Me

46- Manfred

 

    Even when they aren’t being kept apart, they’re kept apart. Watched. And he’d still rather be at the house than at his place, either of his places if the yacht counts as a place. He’d still rather be… not alone. And the more he can play along, the more things go back to how they were, which…

 

    He used to think it was what would make him happy. Or, it was what did make him happy. Just the attention and the presents and a safe place to try to sleep, food, sex. And it makes him happier than not having even that did, sure, or… he thinks it does. Things were bad for a while, and he’s still walking on eggshells a little, he still has to sneak around to get in even a word with Crosby, but it’s definitely not like it was after. He just can’t let himself think about how empty it is, or how pathetic it is to be happy just to have the occasional smile aimed his way and to be invited to perch on the Wolf King’s lap now and then.

 

    It is pathetic, he knows that, even if he can’t let himself dwell on it. He hates him, but he needs him. And every time he thinks he could walk away, there’s a touch, a look, a promise of something special, and he winds up in the poolhouse, naked and flying. And every time he thinks he just won’t go back, well…

 

    Every time he thinks he won’t go back, he sees The Martyr hanging in his apartment where he can’t sleep, and he thinks yeah, that’s about the sum of it.

 

    He goes back because he’d do more for less, whenever he thinks there might be a nice boy sitting up at that house thinking about him, and he knows that he does. Crosby thinks about him. Crosby might… care, or… He doesn’t know, he can’t ask, he can’t think about it and he can’t not think about it.

 

    He goes back, because if he doesn’t, then Crosby is alone with the Wolf King, and alone with the Wolf King is no way to live. And if he doesn’t, then he’s just alone with himself, and alone with Manfred Stone is worse than alone with the Wolf King.

 

\---

 

47- Crosby

 

    He lets himself daydream a little too often about what life would be like, if Freddie were his. If he’d never been Acapulco, if he’d never fallen in with the Wolf King, if he could have been just some boy. How he’d fly down the front lawn whenever the right car rolled up to the gate, how he’d drag him back up to the house, to his room. How they’d go anywhere.

 

    His dad catches him sometimes, looking too far-away, lying on his back on the rug by the speakers, music washing over him. But he can’t police his daydreams. He can watch their every interaction, force them into petty fights for self-preservation, or avoidance… He can’t prove what Crosby thinks about and he couldn’t stop him. Couldn’t stop him storing up memories. How it would have been if they hadn’t been forced to pull apart and play their roles…

 

    He replays favorites for himself. That Tuesday they had staged a fight by the pool. Freddie’s idea, to be shoved in, but he hadn’t been able to, could only shove at his shoulder a little bit, and then for ages after he had thought about the warmth of his skin and ached to be free to rub in his sunscreen again. Not with his dad watching. Wednesday, while his dad was in the office, he’d coached Freddie through making lunch-- and it hadn’t been remotely complicated, just grilled cheese with tomato, but it wasn’t about teaching him something he’d need to work for, it was about letting him be the one to cook, when he’d expressed a halting desire to do so. It was about the memory of that very first kiss to the top of his head because of that stupid apron, and he had listened carefully for any sound in the house and dared another then, standing so close behind that he could feel him breathe and leaning forward. This time, the short hair tickled at his nose, this time the smell was different-- shampoo, no conditioner? This time, Freddie sighed and swayed back towards him, and he’d apologized for breaking the rule he’d set for their safety-- Freddie’s safety-- but when he pulls it up to daydream about, he just holds him close a long moment, plastered to him there at the stove, free to give a hundred kisses. When he pulls the memories up, he pushes Freddie back into the pool only to be pulled in after, the splash and the laughter…

 

    He remembers this morning, another staged spat, hands brushing over the box of cereal, the back-and-forth tug, a little grin for him alone and they’d almost laughed, they’d almost broke, but with his dad listening from around the corner, it had been all right. They had been all right.

 

    And then it was Freddie who’d had to leave to take care of work, after their usual breakfast routine, leaving him to spend the rest of the day imagining. Imagining that boy stretched out on his bed, daring him to tug at black silk shorts with a grin, imagining him on the lounger by the pool, imagining him lying out on the back lawn, popsicle-sticky, sun-warm, his to touch and to kiss. One summer ago he’d resented him so much over such petty things and now his every thought is of a world that would let them be together. He lies on the floor by the speakers while his dad listens to Pet Sounds and he knows exactly what Brian Wilson means when he asks wouldn’t it be nice.

 

\---

 

48- The Wolf King

 

    Acapulco pulls himself together over the summer. Not as a person, no, he’s… well, he’s Acapulco, he’s a messy, self-centered brat and he’s desperate as hell for the slightest bit of attention. He’s more desperate for attention than ever, seems like he’s only ever gone a day before he’s asking if his services are wanted. Sometimes he wants to suck dick so badly he doesn’t even ask for anything in return, sometimes he begs to be used any way and every way, he’s…

   

    He’s not independent or functional, no, that’s fine, that’s not the problem.

 

    He’s not asking for drugs. That’s the problem.

 

    He shows up sober and while he’ll accept a drink any time there’s a drink to be had, while he’ll beg and plead for any touch or approving word, he’s not getting high.

 

    So what’s filling the hole he was using the coke to fill?

 

    He doesn’t like the thought that another supplier is giving him another high. Not one bit, whether that high is literal or not. He seems actually completely sober, and he doesn’t jump at the offer. Not another drug he likes more, no… Something that’s interesting enough for him to shake the need. The chemical component is hardly any of it-- a little time to dry out, so to speak, and his body wouldn’t crave the stuff. But his brain would. His brain would look at boring old life and say ‘hey, Acapulco, why aren’t we all lit up with cocaine right fuckin now?’, and Acapulco being the brainless, spineless little creature that he is, he should be saying ‘you’re fuckin right, brain, let’s get ripped’. The boy’s well trained, he should see the shake of that little baggie and fall in line, so what’s stopping him?

 

    It could be work. If it was only the occasional night of sobriety he might think he was keeping sharp for a deal with someone else, or something like that. It’s the continued refusal since the first couple of times.

 

    And of course he knows what’s changed. He’s not blind, the Wolf King of LA is not blind and he’s not stupid and he doesn’t trust a soul in this world, but that’s the thing as well. He doesn’t trust him-- _them_. He’s not in his office without knowing where they are and he doesn’t stay locked up there without coming out to check on them at odd intervals.

 

    The thing that’s changed in the house is Crosby, but Crosby’s not doing anything for Acapulco. Sometimes they quietly coexist, sometimes they bicker, once Crosby had Acapulco in a headlock but it was definitely a headlock and not an embrace that they were springing away from when he walked in. They didn’t look afraid-- Acapulco looked embarrassed, Crosby merely looked… it was a very ‘what are you going to do about it’ look, which…

 

    He can’t say he approves. He can’t say he approves of the days when Crosby is all sullen teenager on him, nor the fact that he’s figured out that Acapulco is no longer quite so protected… something rubs him the wrong way about that even as he supposes he can’t quite disapprove of Crosby winning at whatever little territorial battles the two have around the house. But Crosby openly picking at Acapulco too much upsets the old balance that kept them both under his sway.

 

    In order to keep himself at the center, he needs to pretend at forgiveness for Acapulco’s past transgression. He needs to favor him sometimes. Get rid of that moody, combative Crosby, the one who might challenge his authority-- let him exercise those impulses elsewhere, let him be a big man to somebody else, but he can’t go thinking he can do whatever he likes without considering the old man’s input. Crosby hasn’t been working for his approval this summer, not the way that he used to… the old rivalry could bring him back in line.

 

    It’s while Crosby is at the grill, the three of them poolside enjoying a late dinner, a pitcher of margaritas, a sunset… that’s when he makes the overture, beckoning Acapulco over to his lap. An awkward perch in the patio chair, but Acapulco still scrambles to make it work, vibrates with excitement at the weight of the Wolf King’s hands on his shoulders and the whisper of breath at his ear before any words are spoken.

 

    “You’ve been behaving.” He says, keeping one eye on Crosby. Crosby’s attention is on the grill, which is fine. In time he’ll discover the need to have his share of attention, once he sees someone else is getting it.

 

    “Of course I have. I’ve been doing my best.”

 

    “And who do you do your best for?”

 

    “You. _Daddy_.”

 

    “That’s right, me. Not having any trouble doing what I ask you to?”

 

    “No, never.”

 

    “Well… all right, then. Maybe we don’t have to be… quite so stingy with your visits, since you’re being such a good boy…” He nuzzles at Acapulco’s neck-- bared immediately, also good. One eye still on Crosby, who still doesn’t turn around, but… that’s fine, too.

 

    The boy is becoming unreadable every now and then, but for now he’ll have to let behavior speak for itself.

 

    “Thank you… promise I’ll be very good for you.” Acapulco squirms a little. And this really isn’t the chair for it… he gives him a gentle shove and sends him back to his own chair with a little smack on the ass.

 

    “Of course you will, honey. I’m very sure you will be. Drink?”

 

    He nods, holding out his glass, and gets topped off, though after a couple sips, he’s running back over to the grill instead of staying put.

 

    “Hey, so-- you remember I want mine--”

 

    “Dry as fuck, I remember.” Crosby huffs. “I will make you a terrible burger.”

 

    “It’s how I like it, I like it not all… gross in the middle.”

 

    “I told you I would make you the terrible burger you deserve, just go back to your chair and let me work.”

 

    “Yeah, well… nice apron.” Acapulco sneers. It’s not much as comebacks go, but as long as he’s being a little shit about it instead of _flirting_ , that’s fine. That’s work-with-able, even, he can work with the tension between them. “Also don’t put weird vegetables on mine!”

 

    Crosby shoots him a look over his shoulder, before turning back to the grill, keeping an eye on both the meat and the various grilled vegetables-- none of which make it onto Acapulco’s burger, a couple of which make it onto the plate next to the burger. And then they mostly don’t look at each other. Conversation is halting, between bites of food and sips of margarita, and they both keep their attention centered on him.

 


	17. One of Those Things is You

49- Crosby

 

    He doesn’t leave his sketchbooks out in the living room anymore, except for the one. The decoy sketchbook, where he has absolutely nothing objectionable, where he has occasionally ripped out half-done drawings he’d begun without thinking.

 

    It’s midnight, and he is working in his very much not a decoy sketchbook, sitting on the floor of the darkened living room, staring out the sliding glass door. The blinds are always down, in the poolhouse. And now, they’re not.

 

    Freddie is alone, otherwise they would be down, he’s sure. The lights are on, and every so often he moves past the windows that make up the whole wall facing onto the pool. Looking up to the office, or just out at the water… or back to the house.

 

    He sways to music Crosby can’t hear, moves in and out of sight. He can’t really see, into the dark living room, where Crosby does his best to draw using only the light from the patio, because if he turned the light on inside, the glare would mean he couldn’t see.

 

    He should… probably not be trying to see. But they can’t talk about these things, he can’t ask ‘did you open the blinds for me, was I supposed to watch you?’ and Freddie can’t tell him. He can’t say ‘I saw you through the windows last night’ either.

 

    The sketches don’t really look like him, it’s only gestures, capturing the way he moves and poses. They don’t look like anyone, they barely look entirely human-shaped yet. He’ll flesh them out in his room with some light. Or maybe he won’t. They feel damning enough as bare lines.

 

    The poolhouse door opens, and he freezes, watches Freddie stroll out, naked, to sit and dangle his feet in the water and look up at the sky. He does more than the gesture, for that-- has an hour in which to work, where Freddie doesn’t move from his spot. The angle of his head changes a couple of times, glances to the office window, also dark, and then back up to the sky.

 

    And then, he looks towards the house, looking not quite at Crosby for a long moment, expression hidden in the shadows. He lifts a hand, a small, hesitant wave, and Crosby doesn’t think he can see him, but he returns the gesture, leans forward to touch the glass, to tap and get his attention maybe, but then it’s too late, he’s pulled himself up and headed back inside.

 

    He gets weird, when he’s running on no sleep… weird and soft, sometimes. Weird and soft and lonely, but Crosby doesn’t dare cross the patio to beg admittance to the poolhouse. He knows Freddie would grant it. He knows he wouldn’t leave before morning.

 

\---

 

50- The Wolf King

 

    Everything seems to be working like a charm, once things go back to the way they were with Acapulco, once he’s ‘forgiven’. The change in Crosby is… almost instantaneous. Alarm, at Acapulco having his place back, and then a desperate drive to please, and an even more desperate desire for more attention than Acapulco is getting at any given time. The occasional unfocused stare when Acapulco was perched in the Wolf King’s lap or putting on a show, his brows drawn, mouth a sour pout, jaw working. If he knew he couldn’t redirect the attention towards himself, he might stalk out of the room entirely, but his first instinct every time is to try and pull the attention back towards himself.

 

    No more ‘sure I guess’ to offers of father-son time, no more lackluster reactions to being rewarded for the times he did put some effort in. No more teenage sullenness on the ride to the gun range. Why he hasn’t outgrown that… But he could waste a lot of time asking what he did wrong with the boy. And it isn’t all down to him.

 

    He gets his performance back up when they do go shooting. Oh, sometimes he’s sulky, sometimes he’s even unreadable, and other times he retreats into his own little world and the Wolf King would love to know where he goes, what he thinks about, but he doesn’t _need_ to know. Some boy from school, or some other thing he wants. But twenty-one’s an age for daydreaming, isn’t it? Twenty-one’s when you think about what you’ll do with your future and how big you’ll be, when you think about who you’d like to get into bed and how, and the places you could go. What you’d do with money. He’s been twenty-one, had a secret world he kept from his father. He doesn’t need to know what Crosby thinks about.

 

    He needs to know what the other looks mean, the sullen, dark ones that don’t fit into the narrative he’s able to cobble together, the ones that aren’t Crosby jealous over not being the one to get his attention. The times he finds him in the kitchen alone looking out the window, with an anger in him. Not sullen, not sulky, not teenager-ish. An anger in him. Is it good? Useful? He doesn’t know yet, that bothers him, he needs to know where it comes from and how to use it, when he sees a sudden tensing in a hand where it rests flat against the wall… raised hackles as he stands over the sound system. The times that he’s alone… that’s when he can’t figure out where it all comes from.

 

    Sometimes Crosby’s lone moods make sense. If he’s in the living room alone playing… fucking showtunes, if he’s got a sad song on and looking sad, fine, no mystery there. If he’s got a sad song on and he’s looking like he could kill a man… maybe it’s good and maybe it’s bad, but it’s a mystery. That’s the problem. He’s growing into too much a mystery.

 

\---

 

51- Manfred

 

    It works. Once he’s back in the Wolf King’s good graces, hell, it’s so good it should qualify as a drug. It’s not just the Wolf King, though-- oh, he loves the smiles and the little touches and the pet names, he couldn’t stop himself from eating that up even with how he might feel about the man in general. He’s just wired that way, he guesses.

 

    It’s the fact that once he’s proven himself, everything _relaxes_. Not that they can get relaxed about it, but at least they can talk sometimes. At least he can wander into the kitchen while Crosby’s making dinner sometimes and the Wolf King doesn’t think they’re sneaking around, just that Manfred’s going to make a nuisance of himself. They can resume their timeshare of the pool and hot tub without having to make a big production out of fighting, even if they can’t just… share. They can’t be closer than they were but they can at least have a detente, if they bicker enough too. If he whines about enough, if Crosby sneers instead of smiling.

 

    They can be alone together, but never so alone… never for a guaranteed amount of time, never as much as he wants. He can’t go into Crosby’s room or have him out in the poolhouse. They can’t walk down to the end of the lawn together to talk, it looks too much like hiding something, but…

 

    But he can sit in the breakfast nook while Crosby fusses over making some kind of fancy-ass steamed vegetable and fish thing, all deep in concentration. He goes between the oven and the stove and the countertop where he has all the different things he’s working with going or waiting. It’s the same look of concentration he has when he’s drawing, like… he’s serious but he’s also relaxed somehow, no matter how focused he is or how hard he’s working.

 

    “Hey, c’mere a sec.”

 

    “You come over here, I’m the one who’s working.” Crosby fires back, and he is smiling, and fuck, but it’s good to just be able to smile.

 

    Manfred hops up from the table, leans against the counter where he’s not quite crowding him. “Those jeans new?”

 

    “No.” Crosby looks over at him, might be blushing. Or, if he’s not blushing, he looks like he should be, the slight flutter of his eyelashes and the twitch at the corner of his smile.

 

    Shy boy. Manfred likes that. He liked it when they hated each other and Crosby would get all flustered and storm out… he likes it more now that he just kind of smiles and ducks his head and stays.

 

    “I just feel like I’d have noticed them, they fit you real good.”

 

    Crosby shakes his head, rolls his eyes a little. Smiles a lot. “Dude.”

 

    “They do. Kinda wishing I could get a hand on you. But, I mean-- no, I know. We can’t. But I mean, you look good.”

 

    “Grab me a spoon?”

 

    “Sure, sure.” He does, leans in a little closer when he comes back to hand it to him. “And, uh… do I look good?”

 

    “You already know you look good, you’re swanning around the place in your fucking four hundred dollar underwear.”

 

    “Swanning, who talks like that? So tell me anyway, though, I mean-- do you like ‘em or--?”

 

    “I like you in green better. Or the velvet ones.” Crosby shrugs. “Darker colors, these don’t… I mean you look good. My dad doesn’t have any kind of an eye for color, but whatever, you look-- I dunno.”

 

    “You like the velvet ones?” Manfred grins, leaning in a little farther, until a hand at his chest stops him. He licks his lips and maybe he should pull back again, but he doesn’t. “I could wear those for you.”

 

    “Not for me.”

 

    “Yeah for you. Always. Since Thanksgiving, maybe. I know he can’t know but that doesn’t mean it’s not-- it’s not for you. I mean, I wanted you to look at me. You let me wear your hoodie. I wanted you to look at me.”

 

    Crosby’s thumb strokes back and forth. “I looked at you.”

 

    “I know.”

 

    “Freddie… Back up. Because I can’t-- I don’t want to push you if he comes in. And I can’t… I mean look at you, I can’t…”

 

    He steps back. Crosby’s hand hangs in the air a moment when he does.

 

    “Can’t keep your hands off me?”

   

    “It’s not funny. One of us has to be responsible. I have to be able to be responsible. I still think about you…”

 

    He trails off, but he doesn’t need to finish, Manfred knows. He knows what Crosby thinks about when they get too close, what scares him, he has the proof hanging on his wall. He’d martyr himself if he only had himself to think of, but he has to protect Crosby, too. Maybe not from his dad, who’d be protecting him from Manfred, but… from having to think about it and feel shit about it. From having to feel responsible. He’s never known how not to destroy himself, not once in his life, but he won’t lay that on Crosby. His nice boy, the sensitive artist. He’ll learn how to keep himself in one piece.

 

    “I know. I can be responsible.”

 

    “You’re a _disaster_. Taste this sauce, okay?”

 

    He leans back in, though not as much-- enough to let Crosby feed him a taste.

 

    “Mm-- mm-hm, good.” He nods, pulling back slow. “Give me your hand real quick.”

 

    “Freddie…”

 

    “Just real quick.” He says, and he knows, he knows. Every minute the Wolf King doesn’t walk in on them is still just bringing them a minute closer to the moment he does. But he has to. If Crosby could risk this, when they had even less time to themselves, then he can risk it now. Crosby allows him a hand, and he brings it up to his cheek, to press his lips to the heel of it. To take maybe a little longer than is smart. So he’s not real quick. Once he has that hand in his, he forgets how to be.

 

    Crosby hears the Wolf King coming first, pretty much always does. Flashes Manfred a worried, apologetic look when he does yank his hand away again.

 

    “Keep an eye on that for me.” He says, voice loud and clear.

 

    “I don’t know what I’m keeping an eye on.”

 

    “It’ll take twenty seconds dude, it’s _somebody’s_ fault I can’t touch any-fuckin’-thing in this kitchen until I wash up again. If you’re gonna be hanging out in here you can learn to help.” He snaps, just as the Wolf King slides into view at the door.

 

    “Getting underfoot?” He arches an eyebrow.

 

    “Just… wanted to see how dinner was coming.” He shrugs, stirring at the sauce with the wooden spoon left in the saucepan, while Crosby drops the one he’d tasted it from in the sink. He doesn’t actually know if he’s supposed to, but Crosby had been stirring it periodically and he tries to go at the same speed.

 

    “Dinner was coming along just fine until _someone_ showed up.” Crosby grumbles, and Manfred has to stifle a grin at that. At the idea that he isn’t actually that someone.

 

    “It’ll be good, it’s always good, I don’t know why you worry.”

 

    “It’s a lot of work for it to be good, it doesn’t just-- turn out that way on its own.”

 

    “Whatever, man. I’m sure I didn’t fuck up dinner.” He shrugs. He stays at the stove when Crosby returns, scooting over when nudged and surrendering the wooden spoon. Lingering a moment before trotting over to the Wolf King’s side to cuddle up and prove where his loyalty lies.

 

    He keeps his eyes on Crosby. He can excuse it being about the food.


	18. My Way, Remember Screaming My Name

52- Crosby

 

    “I wish you’d leave him.” He says, when it’s been stewing in him too long not to, when they’re alone by the pool. Not so alone as to dare to help each other with sunscreen… Crosby doesn’t know if they’ll ever be that alone again.

 

    “I can’t.”

 

    “You don’t need him. He could get someone else. You’ve got money. You-- you’ve been clean. You could.”

 

    “No. I can’t.” Freddie looks up at him. There’s a smear of sunscreen still visible from his collarbone to his shoulder and Crosby aches to reach over and rub it in. He aches for a lot, all the time, he gets crumbs. He’d have less if Freddie left, but they’d both be better off, wouldn’t they?

 

    “Why not?”

 

    “You know why. I’d be alone and I’m bad at that, and--”

 

    “There are worse things than being alone.”

 

    “When would I see you if I left?”

 

    “Shit, don’t-- No. Don’t.” He throws himself back down on the lounger, turns away. “Don’t make it about me.”

 

    “I’m not ‘making it’ about anything, I’m just saying, when’d I see you?”

 

    “I don’t know. I guess you wouldn’t.”

 

    “You would miss me.” Freddie says. It’s soft, but it’s not a question.

 

    “Yeah. I would.” His voice cracks a little. “You’d be safe. Safer. You’d be safe from him. You could go anywhere.”

 

    “I could. You know I won’t.”

 

    “Don’t make this about me.”

 

    “Okay. Well. I’ve got a warehouse that’s here. I’ve got stuff in my apartment that won’t fit on my yacht, that I couldn’t take with me, that I want to keep and I don’t want shit happening to it if I’m gone. I’ve got places I like to go. I’ve got places I don’t like to go so much but I go to ‘em. My life’s in this town. So it’s not about you, but I’d still fucking miss you if I left, okay?” A heavy pause. “Okay? Cros?”

 

    “Okay.”

 

    “You’d miss me. Would you really rather have me leave and never know when we’d find each other again?”

 

    “You little fucker, if he finds me crying over you--”

 

    “Sorry! Sorry.” Freddie says, and he must nudge at the lounger, it creaks a little at his touch. “I can’t believe you’re for real sometimes, just… Everyone always cares what I can do for them. No one’s ever just asked me to be safe. It’s way harder than the stuff I’m used to being asked for. You make ‘little fucker’ sound really fuckin’ affectionate, you gotta watch that.”

 

    “ _I’m_ really fuckin’ affectionate.” Crosby grumbles.

 

    Freddie doesn’t say it but he can feel it hanging there between them, those two words. He doesn’t think it’s so much, to want him to be safe. He doesn’t think he’s nice just because he wants someone he cares about to stay safe.

 

    There’s a hand on his back and they shouldn’t, they can’t, what if? Freddie’s touch warm even if the sunscreen is cold. He lets it happen.

 

    “I should get yours.” He says. “That’s fair.”

 

    “Well, we should be _fair_.” Freddie grins, he’s still grinning when Crosby turns to face him. The smear of sunscreen across his shoulder is gone, he must have rubbed it in himself while Crosby’s back was turned, but he’s holding the tube out.

 

    Crosby doesn’t take his time, tempting as it is. He works quick and doesn’t let himself focus too much on how it feels to be touching him.

 

    Three more years and he’d have his masters’. Could he run away and just get a job somewhere? ‘Spent my summers working for the mob’ is no kind of resume, but UCLA fuckin’ Anderson for Business isn’t nothing. He could get on that yacht with Freddie and they’d go to down to San Diego, or north to San Francisco. Someplace on the ocean. Live on the yacht for a while. Maybe he wouldn’t have to work, depending on Freddie’s business and how he handled relocating.

 

    Would his dad even look for him outside of LA County if he did run off? Might go as far as Orange, or southeast Ventura, but hell, he might not even comb the county. He’d never look that far. But what would Crosby do, when he’s been planning his whole life to handle family business? In three years, Freddie could get away from the Wolf King all on his own.

 

    He can imagine running away, but he’d never do it. Up until this last spring break he’d never been farther from home than Anaheim. And it was fun but if he’d been there longer than a week he would have hated it. Maybe San Diego would be bearable. Ocean, palm trees, tourists, In-n-Out… he assumes he’d find all those things. But what would he do with himself?

 

    The worst part is, he’d miss his dad. He knows he would. He’d get fucking soft and fucking stupid and he would call home and then…

 

    “You should just get out. Lie low for a while. We’d find each other somehow.” He murmurs, his hands falling away. He’ll never run far, he doesn’t know how. He’s got a limited natural habitat. Freddie shouldn’t wait for him… even if they waited those whole three years, it’s no guarantee. He doesn’t believe his dad would hold Freddie hostage if he just wanted to break it off, but if then down the line he found out about the two of them, maybe it’s different.

 

    “You really believe that?”

 

    “Sometimes.”

 

    “Where would you find me?” He turns.

 

    “Guess I’d go to gun shows and movie retrospectives. Where would you find me?”

 

    “Art museums, maybe. Zuma?” Freddie eyes him up and down. “Paradise Cove? Or you like to get farther away? You go out to Long Beach? No-- Santa Monica. I’d look for you there. You, uh, you ever go to the, the Rhodes museum?”

 

    He shakes his head.

 

    “It’s not, like, art shit, so-- My parents dragged me there once. The Rhodes museum. But I guess he’s not into that.”

 

    “No, my dad’s never taken me to a museum.”

 

    “We went to a couple. Depressing history stuff mostly, folks liked historical shit. Would I find you? At an art museum? Santa Monica?”

 

    “Sometimes, yeah. Zuma too, sometimes. Westfield Century City.”

 

    “Wow.” He laughs.

 

    “What?”

 

    “You really are… Wow. You go to the fuckin’ mall?”

 

    “Yeah I go to the fuckin’ mall if I want… fuckin’ frozen yogurt, or pizza, or to buy shit.”

 

    “That’s really cute. You shop at fuckin’ Abercrombie and get mistaken for one of those hot model boys?”

 

    “Well I wear a shirt when I go to the mall, so no.”

 

    “Oh, shame for everyone at the mall.” Freddie leers, making his face heat. His eyes don’t stop, when he reaches the waistband of Crosby’s swimsuit.

 

    “I’m going to swim. And you… just watch yourself.”

 

    “Rather watch you.”

 

    “You better not be if anyone comes out here.”

 

    “Yeah, I know. Hey-- I’ll go to the mall for you, okay? If-- if we ever need to find each other.”

 

    “There’s a movie theater.”

 

    Freddie licks his lips, nods. “Cool. We’ll find each other, then. Cruise the hot Abercrombie boys together and eat fuckin’ frozen yogurt.”

 

    They could. The movie theater, any movie theater. Go in separately and just happen to sit together. If he didn’t give his dad any reason to follow him, then…

 

    But if they got caught, if they got caught just planning, it would be so bad… He can’t take Freddie to the movies, he can’t take him anywhere. Can’t even buy him a fucking frozen yogurt because what if he was followed? It wouldn’t even have to be because his dad was suspicious of him, every so often he just sent someone to check in.

 

\---

 

53- The Wolf King

 

    There’s a lot Crosby isn’t ready for. Graduation, next year, he could… he could do more then. Of course they’d agreed, he’d go for his masters, that would be two more years before he could really become a part of things.

 

    There’s a lot Crosby isn’t ready for, but at the gun range, egged on just a little, rivalry gently encouraged, he gets a nice, tight grouping. If he could do that in the heat of the moment, with another person instead of a piece of paper, well… maybe he’s not ready, but he’s closer.

 

    “Does this happen often? You having to shoot people? Or-- people shooting at you?” Crosby asks, in the car, halted in the drive-thru lane.

 

    “People shooting at me… sometimes, but not very often. Having to shoot people? Sometimes.” He nods slowly. “But the boys handle most of that. And anyone smart enough knows not to try with me. And… if it happens, well, you’ll be ready to handle it, kiddo. Doing better than last summer, maybe we take a few weekends here and there when you don’t have too much on your plate at school and keep those skills up and then you’ll really be there. You could go toe to toe with any of them.”

 

    He reaches over, giving the back of Crosby’s neck a little squeeze and ruffling his hair. Which, bingo, there’s the look. Adoring, hopeful little Crosby, no sullen teenager attitude in sight. The same look he used to wear back when things were good and easy…

 

    If he could keep him like that, he would. If he didn’t have to worry about the future, if he didn’t have to worry about the man he was going to need to be… It’s a balancing act and there’s no manual for it, he needs him to have a fire and he needs him to be heartless, reliable. He needs him to be a lot of things that aren’t adoring, hopeful little Crosby. If he’d had another son-- one who made it-- one who wasn’t soft, one who wasn’t…  Or if either of the girls had showed the inclination to come back, if one of them had been a fit for the job of heir, then Crosby could be soft and it wouldn’t be a problem.

 

    But he doesn’t have another son, not one who made it. The girls went with their mother and finished school and pursued careers and families. He sees them once a year maybe, which is better than how often he’s in touch with Hector. They wouldn’t be happy taking over his empire, and that leaves Crosby. Sometimes adoring and hopeful. Eager to please. He needs to get a lot tougher… but so much else comes with getting tougher that he doesn’t like. It’s harder to bring out that boy he used to be, the one whose world revolves around dear old dad.

 

    Crosby doesn’t complain about picking up three milkshakes, this time, doesn’t say a word. Barely seems to notice.

 

    “I’ll be ready.” He nods, having contemplated the possibility and the praise. A little concerned, maybe, but… hopeful. Adoring. “For whatever happens, I-- I really won’t let you down, Dad.”

 

    “Of course you won’t, kiddo.”

 

    Crosby hesitates over his choice a little, and settles down into his seat. He’s quiet for the rest of the ride, but he smiles. Over the milkshake and over the praise.

 

    Acapulco startles out of his nap on the couch when they get home, where he’d been using his bathrobe as a blanket. The milkshake makes up for the rude awakening-- he knows by now he has to earn it. Has offered, ever since that first time, to put on a good show. And he does.

 

    This time, he takes him back to the poolhouse instead, to earn it. Lets him close the blinds and shimmy out of his shorts and go down on his knees… There’s just a need to have him that’s not even sexual-- not that the sexual isn’t fun, he’s very good at what he does. But that’s not where the need comes from. He’s actually not sure where it comes from today. It’s a gut feeling and he trusts it-- the idea that if he were to be lax now, if he were to go too far in indulging him again, a lesson would be un-learned.

 

    “On your feet.” He orders, just as Acapulco is getting into the act. “And open yourself up for me. Daddy wants a _show_.”

 

    He puts that show on over on the bed, and it’s a good one. The choked little noises he makes as he stretches himself wide… a good deal of very filthy groaning, swearing, some things cut off before they can become words, some things drawn out long, the way he stutters at the end of one particularly loud ‘fuck’... he does know how to put on a _show_.

 

    “All right, up.” Another order, and a confused compliance as Acapulco comes up to him when he beckons.

 

    He manhandles him over to the front window, where the blinds are still down, it’s the blinds and not the glass he presses him against. Gets him up on his toes so that he can take him standing, and it’s awkward, but sometimes it’s worth it.

 

    He wouldn’t, without the blinds down, of course. He does want to show off, within reason, the fact that Acapulco is his. He’s not an exhibitionist. At least, not with Crosby in the house. With people who work for him, they know sometimes to keep out of his way, and a few of them, well, they wouldn’t be seeing a new side of him if they didn’t keep out of the way enough. It’s not about exhibitionism-- it’s about making Acapulco look _out_ , when he can peer through the narrow slats. That’s what this is, what it all is.

 

    No one on the outside can see in, but Acapulco can see out. Can see the house, can see the gulf between their places and remember that it is all a privilege. He doesn’t just get to have things he doesn’t earn-- he doesn’t get to be too comfortable here. But if he’s good, if he’s fuckable, if he’s sweet, then he gets a taste.

 

    Acapulco shifts, goes up a little higher, angles himself differently, and the noises he makes change when he does. High, breathless, a struggle to keep quiet, not that he should try to keep quiet.

 

    “Right there, right there, _right there_ …” He practically whines. “Want you, need you, fill me, _right there_ …”

 

    He winds up biting down on his fist to keep from making too much noise. The effect of looking out on the house side, feeling exposed even with the blinds? Well… the noises are gratifying, but then, so is seeing the bite marks slowly fading, even if he wasn’t the one to leave them. So is the feeling of Acapulco’s body clenching around him. So is making him come hard and sag against the window-- not a requirement, making Acapulco come ceased to be a part of their arrangement that winter, but a nice bonus. It feeds his ego, anyway.

 

    “Clean that up, will you, honey? I pay my maid service enough to deal with almost anything but I don’t pay anyone enough to deal with that.” He gestures to the come dripping down the blinds. Probably some on the glass, and Acapulco probably wouldn’t do a very good job cleaning up after himself. “Drink your milkshake. I’ll be out of the shower in a minute.”

 

    Normally he doesn’t bother with using the poolhouse shower, but it’s the middle of the day. Crosby’s wandering around... somewhere. If he thought he still had to make a point, it might be different, but he’d rather not smell like sex if he runs into the kiddo. Not now that things are back to normal.

 

\---

 

54- Manfred

 

    Sometimes he feels transparent. Good as he is at hiding most things, being in the house with both of them gets to him in unexpected ways sometimes. He doesn’t want Crosby to think too much about what he gets off to, knowing how he feels about the situation. He doesn’t want the Wolf King to know what he gets off to sometimes, when he’s not thinking about him. The times that it’s not rough, when he can close his eyes or just face the other way, pretend.

 

    He can’t afford to forget who he’s with. He can’t afford to say anyone else’s name, but he doesn’t think he’d survive if he said Crosby’s. But in the movie version of his life, it’s a different pair of big hands at his waist sometimes, a different body pressing in close at his back…

 

    Saves up every angle he has on him from watching him by the pool, imagines sweat running down his bare back instead of water, the way those muscles tense and bunch, edits them into his private fantasies. Imagines the things he’d say, in breathless, broken whispers. Things no one’s ever said before… No ‘honey’, no ‘baby’, just his name, the way Crosby says it sometimes like he’s been carrying something on his tongue and it means something.

 

    Crosby would stay. Except, of course, for the part where they can’t meet at all. Not for that. Not for half that, a quarter, a hundredth of what he thinks about having. Crosby would stay, in a world where they could. Look at him like he’s somebody else, because nobody looks at Manfred Stone the way Crosby does and nobody should.

 

    Wide angle, the camera over the bed in the poolhouse, Crosby lying on his side, big hand wrapped around Manfred’s shoulder, that tiny little smile that’s not a smile. His mouth doesn’t really turn up at the corners sometimes and his brow just sort of furrows but his eyes are smiling, and that’s the look. Not the only look, but Manfred’s favorite, because it’s soft and it’s secret. It’s theirs, but if you weren’t close and if you weren’t looking for it you’d think he wasn’t smiling at all, you might even think he was frowning.

 

    He can’t write the dialogue, he figures that out early on in writing these scenes for himself. He knows some of the things Crosby might say but there’s so much else he can’t anticipate and that’s what makes it real, he can’t put the words in his mouth. One or two lines because he’s good at guessing how Crosby will answer sometimes, but in these scenes, when they’re free to just talk, he doesn’t know enough to write it for himself. He needs Crosby for that.

 

    Sometimes he imagines things they’ve said before. Sometimes he imagines they’re just quiet. And he imagines how it looks when they touch, and the sex is artsy and tasteful but sometimes he pictures a close shot of lips brushing against his forehead or fingers tangling and it’s like pure fucking pornography for the heart. It’s too much to put on film.

 

    He looks for excuses to touch and sometimes they do, and sometimes Crosby pulls back, and he understands. He understands. Pure fucking pornography. Crosby could punch him in the face and it would be too intimate to share.

 

    Crosby could punch him in the face and he’d probably just get turned on, if he’s honest, but Crosby _won’t_ , will barely shove him even though it doesn’t hurt anyway. And they don’t need to fight physically now to sell that there’s nothing between them, things have calmed down a lot over the summer. Crosby could punch him in the face and he’d fucking thank him, and Crosby never will, and Manfred doesn’t know what to do with the idea of a guy who’d never punch him even if he did something to deserve it. What do you do with a boy that nice?

 

    You fall for him, he guesses. If you’re lucky enough to be able to kiss him, you do that. He’s not, but hell, he never banked on being lucky enough to meet a guy like that. The idea of having him is too big.

 

    He dangles his legs in the pool, towel folded under him to keep his underwear nice-- not Crosby’s favorites, but still, he’s not going to let the rough texture of the concrete around the pool snag them. They’re still nice. Or… well, he doesn’t think they’re anyone’s favorites. Still, they leave the least to the imagination, they’re cut so he’s always kind of spilling out of them, plus there’s the lace panels. He can at least give him a peek. Just… sitting at the end of the pool dangling his legs, so that every time Crosby finishes a lap he touches the pool wall just to the side of Manfred’s calf, looks up for a moment sometimes.

 

    So okay, so he shouldn’t be watching. Not the way he is. But from the office window there’s no way of knowing how much he’s looking. He’s just… keeping to the rules about not getting naked and jumping in the pool when it’s Crosby’s turn to swim, that’s all.

 


	19. You've Played by All the Same Rules

55- Crosby

 

    They don’t even make the s’mores until August, because the first bag of marshmallows had disappeared. He kept forgetting to buy more.

 

    It’s not exactly a surprise to bring home more and to have Freddie snag the package right out of the grocery bag with a little ‘ooh’. Not a surprise to know he’s the one who’d just eaten all the first bag.

 

    “You’ll put those back if you want s’mores.”

 

    “... What, like… over fire?”

 

    “That is how you make a s’more.”

 

    “I mean you can put marshmallows in the microwave.”

 

    “I’m sure you can but that’s not remotely how you make s’mores.”

 

    “They inflate. Like, a lot.”

 

    Crosby pauses, and hands the bag back. “We should put _one_ in the microwave, then. But like, on a plate.”

 

    It does inflate a lot. Deflates about as soon as the microwave finishes, and when it does the texture becomes terrible, but that’s not important. What’s important is just that Crosby can’t think of a time he’s just done something… stupid and ridiculous like that. Childish. He’s done dumb college shit but he doesn’t think he’s done his fair share. His friends tend to call him the responsible one, and they’re not wrong. His dad’s off on business, but it’s not long. Even if it was, there’s too much they can’t do, things that can’t become familiar.

 

    Not long enough to risk taking Freddie in his car and heading down to the beach and building a fire in the sand. Not long enough to decide on doing much of anything. But long enough to go out on the patio and use the grill for their heat source, and then to walk down to the end of the lawn with the completed s’mores.

 

    At the far edge, where it mostly drops off into hillside, there’s a series of wooden steps, and a little flat spot down the hill, and from there, you could look around the curving hillside and see a glimpse of the ocean. You could see a little glimpse from there, and you could see it between the cypress trees from his dad’s bedroom window.

 

    They take an old blanket out to spread on the ground there, where the grass is dry and scratchy, not kept up like the plush green lawn above, and they soak up the view over a dwindling plate of s’mores and the bottle of Coke they pass back and forth.

 

    “This is… nice.” Freddie flops back out on his back.

 

    “Is it?”

 

    “I mean, I like it.”

 

    “Yeah. I just… I don’t know. I would have taken you to the beach if I could, that’s all. Or even… I don’t know. Somewhere. This is just the backyard. It kind of sucks.”

 

    “It’s not that bad. Like at least we can fuckin’ talk.” He reaches over, his hand curling gently around Crosby’s knee. “That’s all I-- I mean, like, not _all_ , can you imagine? Like I’m fuckin’ gay for you, man, but that’s a whole, like… I mean I still wanna do stuff but I get it, we got rules. If we break it now it’s harder.”

 

    Crosby doesn’t point out that the hand on his knee breaks those rules. He likes it too much. He traces two fingertips over the back of Freddie’s wrist.

 

    “It just sucks. It sucks not to get to figure out who we even are without him. It sucks that I wouldn’t know what to do if we could. I don’t even know what I feel about him sometimes, like… he’s my _dad_. I love him. And I hate him. I hate him so much sometimes, Freddie, and I think about finding you and I… I really, honestly _hate_ him. And sometimes I hear him mention you and I feel like-- But… but then the minute he’s telling me I did a good job at something I can’t even do that. I just want him to love me. I just want to be fucking ten again-- Do you know how angry I was when you were first here and like… and I was jealous of you, like, not in a gross way, just-- Just jealous because you could… you just got attention sometimes and you got held and I just… But I shouldn’t have hated you, you’re just as fucking stuck as I am.”

 

    “I hated you, too. For having your picture up all over the place. All the fucking trophies he kept. ‘Cause no one wants my picture. And I never had any kind of trophies.”

 

    “Trophies. Yeah. Accomplishments. There’s not a picture of me since I was ten, that isn’t about winning something, do you know that? And those are all… They’re not up on the walls. The only picture that’s just like… of me being a kid and not earning anything-- I mean there’s some in albums but he never looks at them. But the-- But the only one there is is in his office and I think maybe that means something. He spends more time there than anywhere and maybe it means something. The shit he puts up in the living room could be to show off but then I think maybe the one in the office means something.”

 

    He lies back as well, scooting down so that his eyes are level with Freddie’s. It means the hand on his knee slides way up his thigh. He lets it.

 

    “I don’t know. I mean… fuck. I don’t know. You do everything to make that man happy, it should mean something, but he’s… He’s, like… broken. Like, fuck, I’m not a good person, Cros, but your dad…”

 

    “Don’t.” He whispers, reaching out, the back of his hand resting against Freddie’s shoulder. “Don’t say that. I mean, about you.”

 

    “It’s fuckin’ true.” He snorts. “You don’t know the shit I do, I--”

 

    “If you can call me a nice boy--”

 

    “It’s so different, Cros. It’s so different. And I-- Like, and it’s okay. I’m okay. I’m not good but there’s worse people out there. I’m not the worst guy he could’ve brought home to meet you.” He smiles at that, soft. “And he’s bad, but he’s not the worst guy who could’ve picked me up-- and if he didn’t, I wouldn’t have met you. Shit, if I was… If I was with some guy like him and there was no you?”

 

    “You should have gone with someone nice.”

 

    “I did. Or… I am. It just… happened weird.”

 

    “I can’t… I can’t save you from him.”

 

    “I never asked to be saved. I’ll figure it out, okay? You just keep me going, I’ll figure it out. He won’t want me forever.”

 

    “He won’t let you be with me just because he’s done.”

 

    “I’ll figure it out. Maybe he won’t care.”

 

    “Maybe.” Crosby says. Neither of them believes it, he can tell. “Fuck, we need to get back to the house. How long have we been out here?”

 

    “Not that long.”

 

    “Freddie…”

 

    “Maybe fifteen minutes.”

 

    “Way longer than that. He left before I went to the kitchen to grab the stuff, that was way longer ago.” He rolls onto his side, pulling his hand back. “You head back up now, I’m going to wait--”

 

    “That’s some spy shit but there’s only one place those stairs go if he’s back and he’s looking. And he’s not, it’s been… half an hour, tops, and it takes fucking forty-five minutes to drive anywhere. And if he’s not here then there’s no point going back separately or going back up at all, ‘cause he won’t even get where he’s going for half an hour.”

 

    Crosby closes his eyes and tries to figure, but he doesn’t know where his dad was actually going, where he’d get off the PCH and onto what, so he can’t guess at the traffic. They’ve been out here longer than fifteen minutes, but he guesses not forty-five.

 

    Freddie’s hand moves to rest on his waist, and his eyes flutter open, meeting green ones.

 

    “We should still head back. So we can look normal when he does get back.”

 

    “In an hour and a half. Just… lie here with me for five more minutes. I never get to be as tall as you.”

 

    “Five minutes.”

 

    He cups Freddie’s cheek, which he shouldn’t. He can’t save him… he can’t even save himself, and he knows what it’s like to not even want to be saved. As if he could go back to being ten and live in a world where someone wanted to have him, raise him, look out for him.

 

    Sometimes he wonders if that world ever existed, but he knows some things are true. He knows his dad was different. He knows he used to do things, little things. He used to laugh. He used to put an arm around him on the couch at night and let him fall asleep like that, and presumably carry him to bed where he’d wake up in the morning. He used to swim, and dance, and tell jokes. And now he doesn’t. And he hasn’t for the past eleven years.

 

    Crosby used to think sometimes that whoever tried to kill him the night that everything changed, that they succeeded. And he came back anyway and he looked the same, but…

 

    But he doesn’t know how bad it was, and his dad will never tell him about how bad it was, he only says it’s not going to happen again and then the subject gets dropped. And he had to deal with it the way a ten year old deals with anything, not… not well. He just had to deal, on his own.

 

    Sometimes he wishes whoever had tried to kill his dad that night had succeeded, and then he hates himself, sick to his stomach. That Uncle Tommy would have come home instead and raised him differently, even though he’d probably have gone to his mom if that had happened. And he’d loved his dad then and he loves him still, some of the time, it’s an ugly thing to wish for no matter how you look at it.

 

    He closes his eyes, and tries to focus on counting the seconds, minutes. Except when he gets to five, Freddie is sleeping. Which… well, it happens when you don’t fucking sleep at night.

 

    But if it’s been maybe thirty minutes or thirty-five-- there’s no fucking way it was fifteen, not since his dad left, but if it’s been thirty minutes he can let him get in another… a while.

 

\---

 

56- Manfred

 

    He wakes up, with Crosby’s hand playing through his hair, his arm half-asleep and a crick in his neck from trying to sleep on the ground on his side, and he doesn’t remember rolling over but he must have, he must have to look at Crosby. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, either, but clearly he did. And Crosby is just… looking at him, that look, soft and quiet and intense, with just his eyes smiling.

 

    “Was I out long?”

 

    “Just a little bit. You needed it.” Crosby’s hand slips from his hair down to his cheek again, where it had been before he’d fallen asleep. “You need to sleep.”

 

    “I sleep sometimes. Been better this summer.”

 

    “Gee, I wonder if that has anything to do with not fucking snorting coke every night.”

 

    He reaches up to take Crosby’s wrist. “Maybe. I think about you… when I’m out there and you’re up in the big house, I think about you. In your bed.”

 

    “Freddie…”

 

    “You can’t keep reaching for me and then saying I shouldn’t even say shit about us, you can’t make everything you say to me sound so fucking sweet sometimes and then tell me I can’t say anything to you about it. You-- you talk about not wanting me to get high and it sounds like-- And you think I should sleep more, and… and you just make everything sound so _nice_ , so let me say something nice to you.”

 

    “I shouldn’t _be_ reaching for you. And if you said something nice back I wouldn’t be able to stop. You’re a disaster--”

 

    “You make that sound sweet.”

 

    “It is. You’re _mine_. But…” Crosby swallows, taking his hand back, and Manfred lets him.

 

    “Yeah. I know. But… I gotta say it, I gotta say, I lie there, and I think about you. Not in a sexy way, I mean… I think about you sleeping, and then I can sleep a little… a little better. I just… I think about you. When I’m sleeping at my place, I don’t think about anything _but_ you.”

 

    “I think about you, too. Wish you could be with me. Even just… even just to-- Even if we couldn’t do anything, if you were just next to me, sometimes, I think I could-- If we could just be like _this_. I’d be okay with that.”

 

    “Shit, not me. If I could be in bed with you, we’d be doing stuff. I’d be fuckin’... doing everything for you.”

 

    “Romantic.” Crosby snorts.

 

    “How’s it not romantic? I’d be, like, everything. Like anything you wanted.”

 

    “Yeah. Yeah, I know.” This time his hand goes to Manfred’s waist. He reaches out and cups Crosby’s chin in return, feeling the rasp of stubble. He wants it against his throat, his chest, his thighs. He gets this, and even this is more than he knows they should.

 

    Crosby gets it. Crosby gets it on a whole other level, like… their fathers are completely different flavors of terrible, but… but he gets it. He gets where the damage comes from. Whether it comes from Manfred’s father or from the Wolf King, Crosby understands where all of it comes from. Maybe he doesn’t understand the parts that are just Manfred, that are just him being a shit person who makes shit decisions. Manfred doesn’t know how much of his damage is just him alone and how much he can lay at the feet of the men who shaped him. Crosby calls him a disaster and makes it sound like he’s still good. If there’s a part of him that is, Crosby could be to thank. He at least makes him want to try. The ship has sailed on good… but he could try for good enough.

 

    In the movie version of his life, Crosby rolls him onto his back and kisses him just about now. The camera pushes in and pans around from over the top to a side angle on that kiss and it takes in the way they smile when the kiss ends and their faces don’t part, not by much. And they breathe hard a little, and they look into each others’ eyes and every time they both breathe in in sync the camera catches the way their chests touch, and…

 

MANFRED

I’m not good enough for you. But I’ll try.

 

    And maybe he even repeats that, the ‘I’ll try’. He repeats the ‘I’ll try’, and Crosby kisses him again.

 

    But instead Crosby just looks at him a long moment, and pulls away.

   

    “We need to get back up to the house.” He sighs. And Manfred doesn’t tell him about trying to be good enough. He just picks up the empty Coke bottle because he thinks Crosby probably cares about recycling it.

 

\---

 

57- The Wolf King

 

    The trip out to Yellow Hill Road doesn’t take a long time, but it’s a pleasant drive.

 

    He likes driving, but he doesn’t drive himself when it’s business. It sends a message to have someone do that for you. It sends a message to arrive in the right car. Behind the wheel of his own car he could go incognito, be someone other than the Wolf King for a while. There’s a freedom in that that he might outgrow…

 

    He could give up his car, and just be driven around. He has no attachment to it in particular. If that was what had to happen, it would be fine. He’d been attached to his first car. He supposes that’s natural. It had lasted a long time. It had been well taken care of. They don’t make them like that anymore.

   

    The business up on Yellow Hill Road doesn’t take long, either. It is, luckily, pleasant business. He doesn’t enjoy having unpleasant business with near neighbors. Unpleasant business belongs a certain distance from home… home should be safe, if not sacred.

 

    He’s whistling when he opens the front door, though it dies away at the lack of greeting. Crosby is not always enthusiastic in welcoming him home, which he supposes is part of becoming an adult, but unless he was in a _mood_ he was usually good for a ‘hey, Dad’. Maybe a ‘how’s work’, if not any extra warmth. He hadn’t _been_ in a mood. Then again, he could be in his room, unable to hear the front door, not paying attention to the comings and goings out in the driveway. Acapulco is always very enthusiastic in welcoming him home, but he could be out in the poolhouse. Or one of them could be using the pool.

 

    The living room is empty, that’s… well, that’s the important part, that’s good, because the last time he came home to absolutely no fanfare from anyone, they were on _his_ couch and… the less he thinks about that, the better. The idea that they might betray him again remains.

 

    That’s when he does see them, through the sliding glass door. Coming up the back lawn-- from the little lookout point down the hill? Maybe not. Oh, for their sakes, maybe not, for Acapulco’s sake maybe they were not enjoying his private lookout, his view of the ocean through the winding hills. Not the two of them.

 

    But they don’t walk back up to the house together, Acapulco splits off to the poolhouse, Crosby heads in alone with a blanket slung over his shoulder, a plate in one hand.

 

    “Hey.” The Wolf King greets, hands in his pockets, smiling. Almost.

 

    “Dad!” Crosby straightens up. Surprise. Guilt? “Is everything okay?”

 

    “Everything’s peachy with me. How about you, Cros? Everything okay here?”

 

    “Yeah. Everything’s… how you left it. I just thought you were-- I thought maybe work was--”

 

    “Work’s handled. Until the next time I need to... deal with someone.”

 

    “Cool. Well, great. I’d have saved you a s’more if I knew work was going to be handled. Or, like… a marshmallow anyway. Make it when you’re here ‘cause they get weird once they’re cold, but like--”

 

    “Yeah. Speaking of _dealing_ with people, about, uh… Acapulco.”

 

    “About him?” Crosby looks away. He catches the flicker of fear anyway.

 

    “Has he been a lot to, to _deal_ with? Or are you two good now?”

 

    “Normal good. I mean he’s an asshole and he’s eaten one and a half bags of marshmallows that I bought but like… he’s a normal asshole. He pops out of the fucking woodwork for food, but other than that he’s just been in the poolhouse mostly.”

 

    “All right. Well if he’s being a problem, I can, I can always, uh… _talk_ to him for you. If you want. I don’t want him to give you any… trouble, or.” He shrugs.

 

    “I can handle it. If he’s a problem, I mean, like-- I can handle it. If… I mean, I should be handling my own problems. So you don’t have to worry about me.”

 

    “Oh, Cros…” He takes two loping steps forward, bringing a hand up to curl around the side of Crosby’s neck. “But I do. See, that’s _fatherhood_ , isn’t it? I always have to worry about you. I have to worry about what kind of _trouble_ you might get in. If, if dear old dad didn’t sort it out for you. And I know, kiddo, I know he can be trouble. So. If there’s ever anything I need to sort out, well, then I should know. Shouldn’t I? Because otherwise, I’ll just worry. And you don’t want that.”

 

    Crosby is wide-eyed and very still. Guilt? Or not guilt? His face is so blank aside from that wide-eyed-ness, it’s not the look of an adoring son who would be happy for his father to take care of his troubles for him, but is it surprise at the sudden warmth of the offer or is it worry over the complete lack of it?

 

    “I mean you could mention to him to not eat all the fucking marshmallows but like… I dunno, he’s mostly left me alone. You want anything in particular for dinner?” Crosby adds the last quickly, tries not to shrug and doesn’t quite stop himself.

 

    “Oh, surprise me.” The Wolf King grins, gives him a quick little squeeze before he moves past him for the door. “I’ll remind him to keep his hands to himself. And his mouth.”

 


	20. A Few Things, Maybe Several Things

58- Crosby

 

    Cooking can’t calm him. Nothing can. He should have made Freddie come back up to the house when they’d first finished, made him take a nap on the couch if that was what he needed, but he shouldn’t have let them linger. He shouldn’t have walked back up with him, because yeah, he could say it was stupid to go ten minutes apart but if Freddie had gone up to the house and seen his dad already there, he could have made sure he wouldn’t be watching when Crosby came back up…

 

    He’s shaking even as he works, now that he’s not being watched. Shaking so hard he nearly spills everything, and he’s just glad he picked a dish that takes more standing around than fussing with, but it’s bad, it’s so bad, and he doesn’t know what he’ll do if Freddie doesn’t come in again. He already sees the dark poolhouse and the bruises, he doesn’t even have to close his eyes, it’s there fixed in his brain, superimposed over the pot on the stove. Everywhere he looks.

 

    When he turns to see Freddie has slipped into the kitchen, silent, he’s so startled he winds up burning himself, just manages to not spill dinner everywhere.

 

    “Holy shit, man, come here.” Freddie drags him to the sink, getting the cold water running. He holds onto Crosby’s arm, shoves his hand and wrist under the stream. “Sorry, didn’t mean to--”

 

    “You can’t be in here with me, Freddie, shit, you can’t--” He starts. He almost says ‘you don’t understand’, but Freddie turns to face him and he sees a cut across his cheek. “Shit.”

 

    “It’s fine.”

 

    “It’s not fine.” He grabs a paper towel and wets it, dabbing gently. Freddie doesn’t even wince.

 

    “Just got caught on a ring a little, nothing bad.”

 

    “It’s bad.” Crosby frowns. “Fuck, I-- You need to get out. Don’t be here tonight. Don’t let him get his hands on you again tonight.”

 

    “It’s handled. I told him it was nothing. You had extra s’mores and shit and I was just trying to be nice, like he told me to be nice, he can’t get mad if I do it. It’s not like before… It’s handled.”

 

    “But he still hit you.”

 

    “That was before it was handled.” Freddie says, and he doesn’t say he asked him to. He looks away. Moves away. “Thanks.”

 

    “Don’t stay here tonight. For me.”

 

    Freddie looks back over his shoulder. “It’s a lot safer in the long run if I stay. ‘Cause it’s handled-- and if I act like it’s not, like I got something to be afraid of, then he’ll give me something, you know? He’s gotta believe I’m a lot dumber and more trusting than I am. Anyway, anyone comes around asking, I just came in here to grab a Coke.”

 

    He stops at the fridge to do just that, before drifting out. Crosby looks over the little pink mark at the side of his wrist, carefully drying his hands off and going back to prepping dinner. He guesses it’s barely even a burn, really. He doesn’t really feel it anymore, or… it doesn’t feel connected to him. Nothing feels connected, he’d say not since he walked into the house only to be ambushed by his dad, but he thinks it hasn’t felt connected in a long time. He hasn’t known who he is since that night in the poolhouse, because he hasn’t known who his dad is since that night in the poolhouse, the man he’d idolized, who had raised him, who he had wanted to be just like.

 

    No. He hadn’t known who his dad was before that night. Now he knows. But he can’t reconcile any of it, he can’t hold onto a way of thinking or feeling about anything. He drifts from moment to moment, and he’s always longing for a life that isn’t his, but sometimes it’s one where he and Freddie go far, far away, and sometimes it’s one where his father loves him, unreservedly.

 

    At dinner, he pretends he doesn’t notice that little cut, that he hasn’t seen it and hasn’t given it any importance in his mind and hasn’t thought of Freddie lying alone in the poolhouse bruised and beaten, hasn’t devoted a moment to him, let alone frantic months of work in creating a life-sized tribute to the suffering he’d caused. Or, his family had caused. His dad had caused.

 

    His dad.

 

    His dad, who heads out to the poolhouse again that night on Freddie’s heels, leaving Crosby to sit up worrying, to wait for him to come back and go to bed so that he can at least know. It’s ages before he does come back in, or at least it feels like it, and Crosby gives a distracted ‘goodnight’ without looking up from his book, he doesn’t dare look up from his book and let his face be seen.

 

    “You turning in?” His dad asks, picking up a book of his own and collapsing down into his chair.

 

    “Maybe after this chapter. Depends on if there’s a cliffhanger.”

 

    “All right. Well, keep your old man company for a while, then. Good read?”

 

    “Yeah. Thriller.”

 

    “I’ll, uh, leave you to it.”

 

    He’s going to wait him out. The realization sinks heavy in his gut. He’s going to sit there, maybe all night, and Crosby won’t be able to get past him. And if he did go to his room, wait to hear footsteps pass his door and slip out again, who’s to say he wouldn’t be in his office with the lights off, watching?

 

\---

 

59- The Wolf King

 

    He replays things in his head, more than he reads his book. He turns things around and tries to fit them together.

 

    Acapulco had insisted upon his innocence this time. Insisted on it… and maybe it was true, but of course he couldn’t trust him. What else would they have been doing down there, the little private lookout? _His_ private lookout.

 

    The old wooden steps haven’t been kept in repair in a long time, but they must be fine. The last time he’d been down there…

 

    He’d taken the garden stone down there and put it in place, that was in late October, ninety-eight. He’d thought he might still go down and spread out a blanket next to it now and then, take in the view alone. It never really wound up happening, without the warm hand in his, the tug forward he had no choice but to obey. He could see a little wedge of ocean between the trees, from his bedroom window, way off in the distance. The view isn’t as good as it was from the lookout point, but…

 

    That had been their view, their hills, their little glimpse of ocean. There aren’t very many things for two people to do, in a spot like that. Just enough space to lie down together and roll around a little bit, without worrying about going over the edge. You go out, and you look out at the ocean, and he looks up at the stars. And then you reach for him or he reaches for you, and you roll around a little bit. You don’t take a boy down to a spot like that to shoot the shit, is the thing. You take him down there so he’ll take you in his arms, you take him down there because you want the open air sometimes, and the stars overhead, and the breeze. The things the poolhouse doesn’t give, the things he likes…

 

    You take him down there to give him the things he likes.

 

    But you don’t take him down there for a fucking playdate picnic.

 

    Crosby used to be afraid of the steep steps down, and the sheer drop-off around that little ledge, the unsafe hillside. Wouldn’t go farther down the lawn than that little hole in the hedge. But he’d just been a little thing then, hadn’t he? Steps don’t seem so steep when you’re grown-- tall, really. Well he can enjoy the spot alone if he just wants a view, someone ought to. He thinks Tommy would like that. To think someone still enjoyed his spot. But not Acapulco. Not with either of them, not Acapulco. It wasn’t _his_. Bad enough he moves his things around the poolhouse, bad enough he should leave any reminders of his presence when he isn’t needed, but to take this, too… _taint_ this, too.

 

    You don’t take a boy down to a place like that if you don’t have plans. At the very least, designs. You don’t sneak him off to a secret spot for nothing. And the very idea… _His_ spot.

 

    They couldn’t have a body to deal with. Things were too hot and they couldn’t have a body.

 

    There’s no grave, no headstone, for Thomas Harrigan. There was a boat, there were pockets loaded down, there was a man named Orian Franklin, who primarily thought about himself as such then but who would not for very long, and who nearly went over the side himself trying to lower him gently-- gently, dammit!-- and two more men who were alive then and still are, who had to haul him back in. Who had to behave as though his composure had remained and forget that night in its entirety.

 

    There’s no body, but Tommy was prepared for that. Tommy _understood_. Tommy would have done the same for him and Tommy would have known it’s what he _wants_. Ultimately, what he wants. And there’s no grave. And there’s no headstone.

 

    There’s a little flat garden stone, the kind you’d build a path out of or set at the base of a tree or let nature crawl over. A snarling wolf in bas relief, a _protector_. There’s a place where a man who didn’t survive that night used to sit and watch the stars. Where the man who only half did watched the ocean. Where those two things, vast and immense and ineffable, used to crash together in a steam heat. There is a painful, sacred place that is _not_ Acapulco’s to profane, and he can have the poolhouse if he wants it, he can scatter his things and change the way it looks and do whatever the fuck he wants in there as long as he keeps his hands off of the Wolf King’s son, he is still not allowed _that_ anywhere. And he does not get _this_.

 

    He’d made it clear, he thinks, that Acapulco was not allowed certain things. Then he’d made it very clear that he was giving him the benefit of the doubt by letting him off so easy.

 

    And then, after dinner, he’d assured himself of Acapulco’s loyalty, and assured Acapulco of his capacity to pretend at forgiveness.

 

    Even now, he can’t sleep and won’t sleep, there’s too much to puzzle out about those two.

 

    It’s a night for not sleeping. Crosby’s up with a Lehane novel which he supposes must be riveting enough. Whether Acapulco gets any sleep, he neither knows nor cares.

 

\---

 

60- Manfred

 

    When he slips into the house in the early morning, Manfred finds Crosby asleep on the couch, book on the floor. He picks it up and sets it on the coffee table, before dragging an afghan over him-- enough to wake him this time.

 

    “Freddie.” He pushes himself up, reaching out to snag his wrist, holding him in place and looking him over, some desperate question hiding behind his eyes, until finally he lets out a sigh and lets go.

 

    “You okay?”

 

    “If you are.” He nods.

 

    “Nice boy.” And Manfred reaches out, for Crosby’s cheek, just to touch him, just for a moment. And it hurts when he jerks back, even if he understands why. And then, instead of searching him over-- for injuries, he realizes, for new injuries-- Crosby searches his eyes, and the look that comes over his face when he finds what he’s looking for makes Manfred feel like a whole new kind of shit.

 

    “You were doing so good. Like all summer.” He sinks back into one corner of the couch.

 

    “Yeah. Well. Daddy’s forgiveness doesn’t come cheap.” Manfred shrugs, turning away.

 

    Oh, he’d been sweet after dinner. Not like the fury of that afternoon-- there was heat to it this time, real heat, there was a depth in his anger that Manfred could barely comprehend, though it had been restrained. One open-handed smack across the face, and when that didn’t have the desired effect, a backhand for good measure that did. And a look in his eyes that said Manfred was just some insect to him. And he’d leaned down and whispered in his ear, ‘do you know what I would do, if I thought you were together?’, and Manfred had filled in all kinds of blanks. None pretty.

 

    But after… After dinner, he’d been sweet, and that was worse.

 

    He’d wrapped a too-gentle hand around the back of Manfred’s head, cradling him, crowding him against the wall as he drew something out of his pocket and the crinkle of the plastic set the craving off in him…

 

    A treat. To show that everything’s okay after today. Oh, but you have to promise-- that’s what he’d added, you have to promise not to go doing anything dangerous. Going down those out-of-repair steps to the overlook was dangerous. So much as looking at Crosby too long was dangerous.

 

    And it would have been deadly dangerous to say Crosby wanted him sober. He’d said he was fine, that the Wolf King didn’t need to make anything up to him, he understood how bad it must have looked and… and oh, he’d batted his eyes, said all the right things about who he belonged to.

 

    The Wolf King had licked a finger and dipped it into the baggie, rubbed it into his gums like that very first night while Manfred just stood open-mouthed and unresisting. Hating himself, because that little reminder of the first time still felt good. Because the too-gentle hand felt good and so did the promise of something not-gentle. Because he’d been so ready to say yes after that.

 

    “Are you mad?” He whispers.

 

    “Yeah.” Crosby whispers back. Manfred dares a look over to him. He’s sitting there, fists balled in his lap

 

    “At me or at him?”

 

    “Him. If he made you do it just so he wouldn’t hit you again, then him.”

 

    “Don’t know if he’d have hit me again.” He shrugs, sitting down on the floor by the couch. “He wasn’t… You know what it’s like, though. When he’s-- When you’ve been walking on fucking eggshells and then suddenly he makes it feel like everything’s gonna be okay if you just do what he says. Like he’s not even asking that much and if you’re just good then… then maybe he’ll, like…”

 

    Crosby’s hand finds its way into his hair, soft. “I know.”

 

    “Maybe he’ll just _touch_ you. Just like… a hand on your shoulder and… Just a hand on your shoulder and it would be _enough_ , fuck. No one ever _touches_ me. Except him, and you, and you can’t.”

 

    “I know.” Crosby says. He’s listening, so Manfred relaxes into that touch. He may be feeling a little jumpy and a lot paranoid, kind of shaky, but Crosby has really good hearing, he can trust him to pull away. It doesn’t matter how softly the Wolf King can walk because he’ll still have to open a door before he gets to them…

 

    “If I said no this time he’d have asked me why I was saying no.” He pushes up into Crosby’s hand, wrapping his arms around himself. “I told you, I told you I couldn’t promise… Like… we both know what he’s like, but he’s still really different with just you and just me. That’s one of the differences. Like… that’s how he likes me some of the time. And the difference between him and me is, like… he can do it once to show me there’s no reason not to and then he doesn’t need it again. And I did it once and I do. But I did do pretty good for you, didn’t I?”

 

    “Yeah. You could not need it. You could do it again. Just… not with him.”

 

    “Not with him. Yeah. Well, that’s a nice thought. What about you?”

 

    “I don’t get a ‘not with him’. But he doesn’t hit me. He doesn’t get me hooked on shit. I can stick it out, it’s different.”

 

    “You… you could, though, I mean-- No. I mean, right, we can’t… I know like… three things that might happen if you and me ran off together, and all of them end with nobody ever finding the body. My body.”

 

    “No. I can’t. You _know_ him. And you know… You know what it’s like. Because tomorrow he’ll ask me what I want to do together and he’ll-- Yeah. Just a hand on the shoulder, and he’ll remember some dumb thing I liked when I was a kid, and I won’t be able to leave. Because my entire life is just waiting for tomorrow.”

 

    Tomorrow, when the Wolf King is nice. Yeah. Yeah, Manfred guesses he knows. It could be an hour later or a week or half a year but when that tomorrow comes, you can forget a lot of yesterdays.

 

    He could maybe leave. He’s not convinced it’s safer to leave than to stay, but he could maybe do it. He’d miss the nice tomorrows. He’d miss being touched. He’d miss the poolhouse, and the pool, and the big house, and the couch, the kitchen, the breakfast nook where he’d sat watching Crosby cook.

 

    Crosby. He’d miss Crosby. He’d miss him so much, too much, and he knows what he’d fill the void with and he tries not to think about the fact that it’s not very good for him. It wouldn’t fill the void. He’d go home to the Martyr and he’d watch its face at night when the light changes things. He’ll imagine it bearing those marks for him for every dumbass thing he does to himself and gets away clean from. He’ll imagine the artist, alone in that big house with the Wolf King…

 

    Could he stay away from him? Maybe. He does have some self-preservation instinct, he doesn’t want to be murdered. He’s not even fucking twenty-five yet, he doesn’t want to die. And fuck, maybe it’s stupid to look at a boy you know when you’re not even twenty-five and to tell yourself he’s it for you. He could meet other people, fuck other people, he could tell himself he was moving on.

 

    Crosby would always be the only other person who knew what some things were like. Plenty of other guys would know what it’s like to get kicked out of the house-- too many, when you’re only looking at guys who want you to suck their dicks. And maybe plenty of those would know what it’s like to get into a bad situation with an older man, to have to sort yourself out from that. And maybe plenty of those would have picked up some bad habits. But Manfred didn’t get picked up by just any older man with some bad habits to give-- he got picked up by the Wolf King.

 

    Crosby… with his fucking wings clipped and his old man asking him why he’s too weak to fly. Stuck because of how that man made him. Made both of them, but Manfred could still get out, and Crosby’s been on this ride since birth. He’s stuck until his old man dies and the Wolf King’s… what, fucking… forty-five? Maybe. Not exactly on death’s door. He’s got enemies, but he’s well protected.

 

    The Wolf King doesn’t stay, after. Maybe if he did, maybe if he fell asleep, Manfred could. Except it’s one thing shooting a stranger and another thing… no matter how much he sometimes hates him, it would be another thing.

 

    He couldn’t shoot him in his sleep. Someone would hear. He’d never get out. He’d need to stab him and he is one hundred percent sure he can’t. Not in his sleep, not when it would be too easy to think about tomorrows and what-ifs, not when he’d never raised a hand to Crosby and Manfred could just leave and maybe they would be fine without him.

 

    Not that these hypotheticals matter because the Wolf King doesn’t fall asleep in the poolhouse and he doesn’t let Manfred into his bedroom.

 


	21. Will I Have to Wait Forever

61- The Wolf King

   

    He keeps them on a shorter leash again, after this latest incident. He doesn’t trust Acapulco farther than he can throw him-- a range he just might test, if he catches him in any undeniable way with Crosby. He doesn’t trust this new Crosby, either, whose moods are not always so clearly telegraphed-- and when they are, they can’t always be traced.

 

    Maybe there are things he could have done differently. Encouraged him to be more open, and then it wouldn’t be out of place to ask now, what is going on in his head. But… if he had done, Crosby would be even worse off than he is. He needs to be able to be unreadable and sullen and angry looking, that’s what he _wants_ , he can’t be the boy with his heart on his sleeve, he can’t be wide-eyed, expressive Crosby to the world. But it feels wrong that he should be closed off to his _father_.

 

    He hadn’t known how to cultivate the kind of closeness that would make him the kiddo’s confidante. He could make himself a central figure, he could demand certain things, he could encourage a level of need, but… some things are beyond him. They always were.

 

    He takes Crosby along when he needs to personally attend to work matters-- when he knows they won’t be too much for him, he needs to ease him in… It’s to keep him away from Acapulco when he can’t be there to watch them, of course, but whenever he draws him aside and asks if he can trust him with something important, well… he gets his favorite version of Crosby back. That’s something.

 

    And Acapulco is, at least… set on working very hard to prove himself once more, after this latest slip. Deep-throating cherry popsicles out by the pool while Crosby grills and the Wolf King nurses a drink, stretched out in some ridiculous pose… Ridiculous, but not ineffective. Not entirely.

 

    The whole act is a little spoiled by the fact that he winds up smearing a lot of melting popsicle around his face in his attempts at putting on a show, which has the effect of making him look less like a desperate little sex fiend and more like a child who can’t be trusted with anything containing red dye number forty.

 

    “You’re such a fucking disaster, dude.” Crosby laughs. “Please, like, look at yourself.”

 

    “I look good, what are you talking about?”

 

    “Nothing. You know what, it’s an improvement.” He snorts. “Hey, next time you take one of my popsicles, that I bought, at least take an orange one. The red ones are the best ones.”

 

    Acapulco just grins at him. A little too cocky, for having not been fully enfolded back into the Wolf King’s good graces, but it is his usual… asshole demeanor. And then he returns to mimicking acts of fellatio on the rapidly dwindling popsicle. The noises are unnecessary, but the effort is appreciated. Effort counts-- he has to show he’s willing to work his hardest, after all, if he wants Daddy’s attention.

 

    Well. Perhaps he really was just an annoying sugar fiend as far as Crosby is concerned _now_ , but that doesn’t mean he can stop watching them. He doesn’t know how what happened that winter came to ‘just happen’, after all, and without knowing that, how can he know whether he should believe it’s happened again, or might yet?

 

\---

 

62- Manfred

 

    They have a lot less wiggle room for the tail end of the summer, it’s hard to get a moment. He’s going crazy, the closer they get to Crosby’s return to campus. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to say goodbye, and if he can’t say goodbye, he can’t give him his gift.

 

    Which is pretty stupid, and it’s not like Crosby would notice not getting a gift he wasn’t expecting, and it’s just music. Just twenty songs that kind of make him think of Crosby. Still, the idea of not getting to give it to him…

 

    Then, the Wolf King gets an urgent phone call, the kind that actually flaps his usual unflappable calm, sends him striding down the hall to his office with the same speed Manfred might have if he were literally running.

 

    “Wait here.” He whispers to Crosby-- as if Crosby wasn’t perfectly happily set up on the couch with a sketchbook and the game show network. Still, Manfred races out to the poolhouse and back, there’s no guarantee the phone call will take long. But he’d taken to keeping the USB drive with the ‘mixtape’ on it in his pants pocket, which was about the safest place to hide something since the Wolf King’s only interest in Manfred’s pants has always been getting them off as fast as possible and keeping them off.

 

    He slips it into Crosby’s hand without meeting his eyes. Their fingers brush, and they don’t have the promise of time.

 

    “What’s this?”

 

    “Just music. Not even a lot of it, just… I dunno. Stuff you can listen to while you’re at school. If you, um… just if you miss stuff.”

 

    “I miss stuff sometimes.” He plays with it a little before pocketing it. “Thanks. That’s… you’re sweet.”

 

    He shakes his head. “Not really. I’m kind of an asshole.”

 

    “Well. You’re my asshole, then.” Crosby says, and Manfred tries really hard not to laugh at that, but he can’t help himself. “Dude, shut up.”

 

    Crosby shoves gently at his shoulder, but then he starts laughing too, and the grin that lights up his face when Manfred shoves back at him, hand closing around the sleeve of his shirt for half a moment… And then it’s just egging each other on, another little push that’s more of a touch, another stifled laugh.

 

    “You’re such an asshole…” Crosby groans, grabbing a throw pillow and thwapping it gently against Manfred’s chest.

 

    “Oh, yeah, we established that.” He laughs, wrestling the pillow away and then throwing it at him. “Your asshole. So, I mean, like… you started this.”

 

    “I was being nice.” He sets his sketchbook aside entirely so that he can cling to the pillow before Manfred can try to recover it. He swings for him with it again.

 

    “I know. You’re a nice boy.”

 

    “You need to stop--”

 

    “I need to stop? You’re hitting me!” He doubles over laughing, landing against Crosby’s shoulder.

 

    “There’s other pillows on this couch. If you wanna return fire.”

 

    “No, you got the good one, I want the good one.” He makes a grab for it, but all Crosby really has to do is hold it overhead and it’s out of reach.

 

    “They’re exactly the same, asshole.” Crosby says, switching to the tone and volume that suggests he’s heard the door down the hall, and so Manfred leans on him a little less.

 

    “They’re not exactly the same, that one’s the good one, if you think they’re exactly the same why don’t you come down here and fucking trade me?”

 

    “No. I got this one first.”

 

    There’s a moment, and then he relaxes. Actually hands over the pillow, though the moment for pillow fights has sort of passed.

 

    “Just checking on us.” Crosby whispers. “He went back in.”

 

    “Fuck.” Manfred sighs. Still, if he was just checking on them, if he’d just thought they didn’t know he was there, then this is the closest thing to a chance he has… He rests his head against Crosby’s shoulder, slinging an arm around his middle. “Are you coming home for any weekends?”

 

    “Don’t know yet.” Crosby wraps an arm around him in return, squeezing him tight. “I don’t know. I miss you already and I’m not even gone. But I don’t know. I don’t want to give him more reasons to hurt you. But we’re together and it’s so hard to stop…”

 

    “Me too… miss you all the fucking time when we’re both here just ‘cause I can’t talk to you for two seconds.”

 

    “Freddie…” He sighs, buries his nose in Manfred’s hair, his breath warm. And the arm around his shoulders is so strong, and the body he’s clinging tight to is so solid, and Crosby’s lips are right there at the top of his head like that very first time.

 

    He should have met Crosby first. But he didn’t.

 

\---

 

63- Crosby

 

    The apartment is set up and ready-- a building his father owns, near the campus, that he’ll have for his senior year and the two years it will take to finish his masters’. Of course, there’s no such thing as privacy in the building, where someone who works for his dad is always aware of who comes and goes, but it’s not like he could have Freddie over even if he was still in the dorms, there’s always the chance of someone just checking in. But here, he feels watched, constantly.

 

    At least he has Johnny to move in with him, although things don’t really go back to the way they were-- Johnny’s seriously interested in someone, and, well… so is he, even if he can’t have him. They finally have both the technical privacy and beds big enough to share, and here they are awkwardly agreeing they don’t really want to do much. Still, in that first week back, once or twice they climb into bed together anyway just to share. Just for the human comfort, and to talk about things it feels weird to talk about anywhere else.

 

    He has the music Freddie gave him. And in that first week back, he can’t do anything with it.

 

    On the first weekend, when Johnny has wrangled a casual date and is going to be out all day at Santa Monica, when he has the apartment to himself, Crosby plugs it in, slips on his headphones, and lies in bed. He doesn’t look at the songs, just lets them play. He can see the first two, just in the course of getting himself set up-- ‘Free Fallin’’, and ‘Blinded by the Light’, and he doesn’t know what about ‘Free Fallin’’ might have made Freddie think of him, but it makes him happy that it did, somehow. He remembers listening to ‘Blinded by the Light’ together, the day he told Crosby his real name. So close on the sofa they touched… It wasn’t the first day to change things between them, but it did change things.

 

    There’s a song he half knows, and a song he doesn’t know, and then ‘We Gotta Get Out of This Place’ hits him like a sucker punch. The fucking Tiffany version of ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’ after, and he imagines Freddie’s hand in his. He imagines going down to the little lookout-- they can never, not again, _fuck_ he must have been backhanded after that and he still didn’t cut his losses and run-- The hills beyond are steep but he still imagines skidding down to the bottom, hanging onto each other, running to a hidden car, just running. Just running, like they can’t.

 

    And then, ‘Come a Little Bit Closer’, he _had_ known Crosby was looking, how could he not have when their eyes locked. The intensity that had haunted him right up until he had something else to haunt him instead, the poses and the seductive gaze that had filled so many pages. Two more songs wash over him without breaking him out of the memory. He had wanted Crosby to look at him, he’d gotten it, and in better moments, Crosby remembers him that way, with his hair at its longest, tumbling over his shoulders… with his lips mouthing along and the desperate fire behind his eyes, ‘you’re my kind of man’. And the sadness he thinks he might have imagined later, in that last moment before they had both turned away. He might have added that in himself, because it felt right. Freddie might not have been sad, then, he had no reason to be when he just wanted to be looked at and he got it. They hadn’t kissed then, they hadn’t talked about much, had they?

 

    The little talks added up. Knowing that the perceived harassments had been some twisted attempt at a thank you from a boy too broken to know better… that made all the difference in the world. Looking back at each offer and seeing someone who thought he could only offer one thing worth trading-- who thought that everything had to be traded for. Who maybe thought that way because of the way Crosby’s father treated him, at least in part.

 

    He’d hated wanting him, after that. It felt like a betrayal. Like he’d promised him a false safety. He had wanted him. Yes, he was still an asshole, but Crosby could be an asshole, too. And he’s a lot of things… and it had been a powerful thing, to have this boy look up at him in wide-eyed awe for the littlest reasons. This boy who thought UCLA was a better school than fucking Yale and Harvard put together and thought macaroni and cheese that didn’t come out of a box was witchcraft, and who just wanted to look at what Crosby was working on sometimes and never made fun of something he showed him in earnest.

 

    That last part matters, because Freddie isn’t a nice boy, he’s a little shit and there’s no sense pretending he isn’t just because he… just because they care about each other.

 

    The emotions wash over him, and the daydreams with them. He listens to ‘This Magic Moment’ and he pulls himself back from the memory of kissing him on the couch-- what comes next is too painful. He imagines him instead. Pictures seeing him across a crowded room and how they’d move to each other, a club or a party or someplace where the crush of people and the noise would hide them and allow them to talk. Or just where they could dance. Watching the sunset on a beach somewhere. Maybe Paradise Cove. Zuma. A nice spot. He doesn’t think the beach is Freddie’s natural habitat, but he thinks he’d like it some of the time, anyway. He had to like the water, anyway, or he wouldn’t have bought a boat.

 

    Crosby loves him, but he’s exactly the kind of idiot who buys a boat when he can barely doggy paddle.

 

    Crosby loves him.

 

    Crosby loves him, and he’s listening to ‘When Can I See You Again’ because Freddie had put it on a mix for him, because maybe he really does love him too, but they can’t talk about love like that, it hurts too much. The answer is always going to be about what they can’t have, what they can’t do, but Crosby does love him. He loves him so much he doesn’t know what to do with himself, and so here he is, lying in bed with tears streaming down his face, over a boy who won’t leave because Crosby is sometimes there.

 

    Freddie can call him his nice boy all he wants, but the truth is, if Crosby were a good person, he’d break his heart to save him, instead of giving him a reason to keep coming back, to keep being used and hurt. He’s not that good. He needs him too much to go so far to save him.

 


	22. Can't You See That I'm Lonely

64- The Wolf King

 

    With Crosby back at school, and Acapulco off dealing… working… whatever he was doing, with the two of them off in their separate places and the house empty except for the silent, regulated prowling of his security detail, the Wolf King returns down to the lookout point at the far end of the back lawn.

 

    The stone is undisturbed, barely weathered. No breeze disturbs the warm September night. There’s nothing left behind that nature didn’t leave, stone aside. No sign of whatever accident or infidelity had occurred here over the summer.

 

    He sits. The sun is fading through the hills, making the ocean’s surface gold. How many nights had they watched the sun fade and the stars come out, the kiddo tucked in and sleeping? Not enough.

 

    Winter, that was when Tommy insisted on stargazing. Better constellations, he’d said. They’d share a blanket. He’d point out his favorite, every time, as if he had ever needed to. He’d point out his favorite, smile that smile, be pounced on and kissed and blown.

 

    The Wolf King doesn’t know any of the ones he can make out now. Doesn’t need to know them. He’ll see the one he knows in January. This year he might actually come down to the lookout again. Too cold in January to float on your back in the pool to watch the night sky.

 

    Not too cold now, though. He unfolds himself from his spot, leaning over to touch the stone before rising to his feet, making his way back up the steps. He sheds his shoes and trousers and shirt at the side of the pool and slips silently into the water to float. To stare up at stars he doesn’t know the names of.

 

    He remembers where Betelgeuse is, in January. He’s forgotten Rigel. Forgotten the names of the others he knows to look for. You forget a lot in ten years when there’s no one reminding you. There are other things he can’t forget. Sometimes he thinks he should forget it all. Let the rest of the Orian Franklin who was die away. The Wolf King is who he is, he had been on a steady trajectory since he was sixteen, looking at his brothers and knowing he would do a better job. The Wolf King doesn’t need to know which stars are where. The Wolf King doesn’t really need to remember seeing them reflected in a pair of the darkest brown eyes he’d ever seen. He doesn’t need to remember or to feel.

 

    But the ache is familiar, the pain is comfortable. He doesn’t know how to feel anything, he has never known how to feel things properly. He was always detached from that… always cold and hard. He was born to it. Hector was too soft and Jason burned too hot and Orian was as cool and calculating and remote as the future Wolf King needed to be. He doesn’t feel things, just this. Faded and scarred over but present, he feels this, and it belongs to him alone.

 

    People can come for the things that are his, if they’re prepared to pay. People can come after him, he’s already survived too much to feel any fear. He pulled the trigger on the bullet that ripped out his own heart, there’s nothing anyone else can do to him.

 

    And people can betray him in his own home. Can change the previously unchanged poolhouse. Can even invade his most personal space-- oh, not twice, but still. All those things, so they happen. So they happen, and so he gets angry, but there’s no one who can touch the scarred and still aching wound inside him. No one can alter it. No one even knows it’s there.

 

    That matters. That’s why he can never truly let the past go-- it belongs to him so wholly that it can never even be touched. He possesses it thoroughly, and by probing his thoughts now and then, by poking at the old scars until they do ache, knowing just which thoughts and memories will twist the knife and how far, he controls it. It’s a pain he can wield with surgical precision, and he doesn’t care what it says about him that he sometimes needs to. But no one else can touch it, and no one else knows it’s there, and that matters.

 

\---

 

65- Crosby

 

    He doesn’t listen to the music Freddie had given him often. It’s too much.

 

    He listens to it when he draws. When he fills pages with sketches, until one thing sticks, and then he draws it over and over, spends the fall working towards having a piece for the winter show.

 

    It’s Freddie on the edge of the pool, lost and weird and soft and lonely on a sleepless night. That’s where he’d pulled the pose, and the lighting, the soft glow and the wavy patterns reflecting off the water, where he’d pulled the expression on his face.

 

    He’d added the cut to his cheek, added-- in a moment of wild artistic license, a departure from his usual faithfulness to reality-- an arrow through the heart, utterly ignored by the boy with the odd, faraway look on his face.

 

    He leaves it unfinished when he has to get ready for Thanksgiving weekend, close enough to finished that it’ll be ready for the show. Which he won’t bother to tell his dad about, because he knows he won’t go, and if he did, he’d see too much.

 

    He listens to fucking ‘When Will I See You Again’ on repeat while he packs. When he gets to the house, Freddie isn’t there.

 

\---

 

66- Manfred

 

    He does not get an invite, for Thanksgiving. All he can think about when the refusal comes is that he needs one for the winter break. Needs to find out the date and get himself invited over, like before, but there’s no hiding what Thanksgiving is, no pretending it wouldn’t be about Crosby.

 

    He gets invited during the following week. He goes. He can’t not go Monday night, when he’d been begging only that previous Wednesday.

 

    There are still leftovers. He gorges himself on everything, except for the green bean casserole, which he’s pretty sick of, considering it’s one of the handful of things he actually makes. Or, he’d made it for himself for Thanksgiving, to avoid pulling into his slip and going to a restaurant alone on a holiday. Last year he’d sat in the kitchen watching everything, last year he’d helped, and this year… well, this year at least there are still leftovers, and Crosby still made them.

 

    The Wolf King lets him eat, and then he’s… sweet. Maybe sweet is dangerous, coming from him, but it’s addictive. There’s a hand cupping his face and he remembers the very first time, that voice so soft and that touch so gentle. He had known even then that anyone he met at that address would be dangerous, too, but the Wolf King had called him ‘baby boy’ and promised to make things better for him, and he’d craved that… he still does, no matter how big he gets for himself how fast. The Wolf King had given him a number that he said he didn’t give just anyone, and the first kiss had been so sweet… Everything had been, and he’d been desperate for a distraction.

 

    He doesn’t drag him out to the poolhouse, just leads him into the living room and pulls him into his lap, talks sweet to him until he feels dizzy from it.

 

    “Oh, baby, baby, I know what you need… And, oh, if you give me what _I_ need, I can make sure you get it.”

 

    Manfred shivers. Nods. He’s off the wagon pretty hard since September. Sometimes he gets by okay, but then he’s here, and Crosby isn’t, and there’s so much empty space. He just wants to spend an hour not thinking about the empty space.

 

    He slides down off the Wolf King’s lap, to kneel between his thighs, licking his lips. A hand in his hair holds him in place and he can only watch and wait, until that cock is brought to his lips, until he’s guided down.

 

    He wishes he didn’t love doing it.

 

    He takes it all and lets himself just float on sensation.

 

    And when the Wolf King is done with his mouth and brings out that little baggie, well… he takes that all, too, but ‘float’ is too gentle a word for the flying feeling that comes with that one.

 


	23. They Didn't See the Stop Sign

67- Crosby

 

    It’s kind of nice to be relieved instead of disappointed, when his dad doesn’t come to the winter show.

 

    He spends the opening standing around awkwardly, watching people looking at his piece, torn between wanting to know what they think and wanting to not think about people seeing it at all. It’s too personal, but he’s put it up there, he can’t help wanting some validation.

 

    His friends are there to give it-- and because show openings always mean free food, and Crosby doesn’t need free food but he still takes advantage of the little table in the corner with the crudite and the cheese and crackers. He should be celebrating.

 

    There’s his piece, after all… it’s one of the first you see, coming into the gallery, partially obscured by an abstract sculpture, but once you come past that, he really has a great placement. So everyone who comes in sees it, even if not everyone stops in front of it. Which is just as well, it’s stressful enough to wonder about the people who do stop.

 

    The Devotee. Legs dangling into an unseen pool, the only sense of place coming from the lighting and the reflection of water, and the unnatural straight angles suggesting that he’s perched on a hard, flat surface and not the gentle slope of some natural body of water. Empty space around him. The only thing to look at is the lonely, faraway boy with an arrow through his heart, looking up. Anyone could imagine what or who he thought about, probably they all have their own ideas.

 

    Johnny is the only one who knows. While the others praise the work and congratulate him on the placement within the gallery, Johnny’s the one who knows about the nightmares and the fears, who doesn’t see it as being just one of those things… those art class things where you’re not allowed to just draw something pretty so you throw on an edge and bullshit your way through explaining why it’s personal. It’s exhaustingly personal.

 

    He doesn’t know if he’ll see Freddie again when he does go home for the break-- and he knows he’s expected to. The apartment’s not really home even though it’s not the dorm, it’s just a place to be, that he mostly likes being, but…

 

    He doesn’t know if he’ll see Freddie, he doesn’t know what he wants. He wants to see him, but if he doesn’t, he knows it doesn’t mean Freddie’s gotten out. So he might as well hope he’s there, if his not being there only means they’re being kept apart. He thinks about last year too much.

 

    One year since they’d been unable to help themselves, since they’d been too desperate and stupid… since everything had changed. Since the weight of a head in his lap and the quiet feeling of just not being alone, of someone understanding your life, his life… How do you mark the anniversary of the relationship you can’t have?

 

    He thinks about that, too.

 

    He thinks about buying him a hoodie. Making a crack about how he could stand to wear real clothes more often, to keep it from looking too personal. But it is personal. He doesn’t want to see Freddie in a hoodie that fits him, that’s never been his. Not… not the way it means something to lend him one, once in a while. Even not being able to do that, he can’t quite bring himself to do something that would put an end to the excuse for it.

 

    He gets him another book, which won’t look too personal, won’t take up the kind of space in his bag that would stand out. If Freddie isn’t there, he can hide it away easily and pretend he hadn’t bothered. He asks a friend majoring in film what he should get for someone who cares about movies. The suggestions are overwhelming, but he picks one. With a week yet to go before break, he picks one.

 

\---

 

68- The Wolf King

 

    Acapulco isn’t giving him much to complain about, really.

 

    The problem is, it still feels like it’s all about Crosby. On the wagon nearly all summer and off again once Crosby’s gone back to college? He’d spent a couple of months refusing to touch the stuff and September comes and he’s begging for a hit of the good stuff all the time… and while there might have been another factor leading to his swearing off the coke for a while, well… It just lines up too neatly.

 

    He begs for a lot of things once he’s high. Mostly the same things as always. No surprises there. Beat me harder, Daddy, and all that. And sometimes he gets it. Within reason, he gets what he asks for as long as he’s giving what he’s asked to give. If he takes his medicine, if he does what he’s told, he can ask for things, that’s where they are now.

 

    Tonight, he had asked him to be _gentle_.

 

    Which is also fine. There’s no reason it couldn’t be gentle. Something like the first time, perhaps. When he’d asked, Acapulco had nodded. A little walk down memory lane. He doesn’t mind gentle. Rough gets to be a lot of work when Acapulco gets demanding, and anything can get boring without a change of pace.

 

    Acapulco positions himself, facedown, which is fine. Gentle’s fun sometimes, but eye contact? He’d rather not keep up the pretense. This isn’t about reenacting a first time because either of them has mushy feelings about it, just recapturing the feeling, shaking things up… maybe Acapulco wanting the reminder that he can give him gentle things, too. He can give him anything, if Acapulco earns it. If it pleases him to give.

 

    Gentle’s a weird thing for him to want when he’s this high, but he gives it to him anyway, holds him down and teases him when he tries to speed things up, and that makes him moan, and that makes things click into place. Being pinned does tend to make him happy… and the Wolf King can do gentle, but not without control. Sometimes, more control than when he’s rough.

 

    “Nice boy…” Acapulco moans. Cocaine is a hell of a drug, if that’s what comes out of his mouth.

 

    “I’m neither.” The Wolf King chuckles, nipping at the back of his neck. Giving him a very _slow_ roll of the hips.

 

    “Let me pretend… let me pretend I’ve got my nice boy.”

 

    “Oh, sure. Sure. Why don’t you tell me about him, baby? This another fuck?”

 

    “No. Except in my head. In my head, a lot.”

 

    “Didn’t think you liked nice boys, honey. What’s he like in your head?” He asks, amused. Imaginary boyfriend? Well, he’d rather hear about smutty fantasies than paranoid ramblings, and it was a fifty-fifty chance when Acapulco had a good high going…

 

    “Tall like you. Fucking hot… like you. But… but gentle, he holds me and shit. I pretend he does, it’s not real, it’s like movies for my head, and... I pretend he’s here when you leave. Close my eyes and pretend he’s sitting on the bed and he just wants to take care of me… brings me food or… touches me real gentle where it hurts sometimes and he tells me nice things. He’s a nice boy. I don’t know how he’s a nice boy.”

 

    The Wolf King pauses, mid-thrust.

 

    “You don’t know how? Didn’t you make him up?”

 

    “You made him. Up.” Acapulco snorts. “No. Yeah. I made him up. How’d you make him nice? No, no, I made him up.”

 

    He’d been ‘nice’, when they’d met. If Acapulco had some caring fantasy version of him, well… is it any wonder if he goes back to those early days sometimes, when things between them are less rosy? If it keeps him hanging on.

 

    “You leave and… he comes in… just so he can kiss me. Talk with me, ‘cause we never get to, just in bed after you leave when I don’t wanna be alone so I imagine shit, and-- shit…” He groans, trying once more to speed things up. “Shit…”

 

    Something catches, in all these ramblings. Oh, it’s absolutely something he imagines, he doesn’t doubt that this is some recurring fantasy, the way Acapulco talks. But there’s something… there’s something about the way he stops himself. There’s a settling suspicion.

 

    He finishes with a few final hard thrusts, before pulling out.

 

    “Roll over, baby, if you want a helping hand with that.” He says, but he doesn’t reach for Acapulco. He reaches for the mirror on the nightstand. “You want a little more? You want Daddy to make it all feel good for you? You’ve earned it, haven’t you, baby? Sit up a second, let’s keep you flying tonight. Then I’ll be _nice_ for you.”

 

\---

 

69- Manfred

 

    Everything feels… good, for a minute. Real good for a minute there, he’s flying high and the Wolf King is sweet with him, and the sex is fantastic, it’s all pretty fucking super except for the part where there’s like… a new galaxy being born inside his heart or some wild shit like that, the stars are exploding or they’re going out, he’s exploding or he’s going out, and even that is fine until the Wolf King stops and looks at him and says ‘shit’ all quiet like.

 

    What’s that supposed to mean?

 

    He figures it out. To his credit, he figures out what’s happening. He figures it out in the car and he wonders how many times the Wolf King has watched this happen to someone, someone he gave drugs to, to catch it coming. He wonders how many boys didn’t have a doctor the Wolf King could call. But he doesn’t wonder things very hard or for very long.

 

    When he comes to enough to wonder things again, the Nurse is standing over him, arms folded, one hand tapping out a jittery near-rhythm against the other elbow, expression… very stern. Swimming in and out of his focus with things he can't make out.

 

    “Seems to me like a smart weapons dealer doesn’t show up to cut a deal high off his ass.”

 

    “Smart one probably doesn’t. Is… that what I did?” He asks carefully. His voice sounds rough. Unreal.

 

    “Is it?”

 

    “Sure. Probably.”

 

    “Yeah. Doesn’t really add up, to me, but… I thought you might say that.”

 

    “What’s it matter?”

 

    “I’m not going to lie to you and tell you you’re a good kid, but you could do a lot better than this.”

 

    “Whatever. You’re not my mother.” He turns away.

 

    “Thank God for that. But your mama ain’t here, and I’m what you’ve got. No one else is in my hospital giving a shit about whether or not you OD.”

 

    “Yeah, well, she wouldn’t give a shit if she was here. So thanks, but…”

 

    “Sure she would.” She says, her voice quiet. Watery, even. “That’s her job.”

 

    “She quit that job about five years back. I’m not taking applicants or nothing. Just… getting by.”

 

    “Getting by. You wanna call it that.”

 

    “I do.”

 

    “Don’t do this to yourself. If you want help, I can give it to you. But this… he can dump you at an ER. This is not what I do now. If you get shot you come to me. If you want my help, by all means. But I’m not here to help you out just so you can do it all over again. I’m too busy, and I’m too tired. Okay? I don’t care if you think you’ve got someone out there giving a shit about you or not, you can start giving a shit about yourself.”

 

    “One person. One person does. But it doesn’t fuckin’ matter.”

 

    “How many people does it take before it matters?”

 

    “Just him. But… it’s complicated. It doesn’t matter. You my fuckin’ therapist now?”

 

    “Oh, I am not qualified for that… But if you need something I am qualified for, go ahead and hit that call button. And try to remember I’m not room service.”

 

    “Yeah, yeah. Um-- so, whoever brought me in--?”

 

    “We both know who brought you in. And he didn’t stick around to wait for you.” She says, and then he’s alone.

 


	24. And We Tumble to the Ground

70- Crosby

 

    Freddie’s there, when he does get home for winter break. He’s manic, bopping around the living room, clearly coked out of his mind, and it takes everything in him not to say something, do something, about this. He used to be fine, even a little lapse was… well it wasn’t like this.

 

    “Cros!” He turns, smiles too bright, bounces over too eager, and for once, for once in his life, Crosby’s dad is actually there in the room waiting.

 

    Watching.

 

    “You’re in a good mood.” He tries to put a little warning behind the sneer.

 

    “Yeah, I am. I guess I am.” Freddie stops short of jumping into his arms, at least. “Holidays. Food and presents and all that. Lights everywhere. It’s a good mood time of year.”

 

    “I guess it is. Excuse me.” He sets his bag down, moves past Freddie-- doesn’t skirt him as widely as he could, but he doesn’t brush up against him, either. “Hey, Dad. “

 

    “Cros, welcome home.” And there’s a quick squeeze, the too-brief weight and warmth of a hand at the side of his neck, always like the start of a massage that ends before it can drain any tension from him. “Classes going well?”

 

    “Yes, Sir. Everything’s great.”

 

    “Good, glad to hear it. Settle in, kiddo. I’ll pick up dinner later.”

 

    “Sounds good.” Crosby nods. He takes his stuff to his room, stays there a long moment after all his things are put away.

 

    He gets to see Freddie, at least, but this isn’t how he’d wanted to see him… strung out, uncareful… fragile-looking in a new way. He’s still riding that high when Crosby does re-emerge. Moving too much, laughing too loud-- mostly at his own jokes, off-color. It’s not that he isn’t off-color when he’s sober, but there’s a difficult-to-explain difference. It hurts to have to deal with it.

 

    He just has to sit there pretending everything is fine, while Freddie perches in his dad’s lap to be doted on as he comes down, and he’s so angry he can feel his jaw locking up but he can’t be mad at Freddie, not really. He’s heartbroken, he’s… ugh, disappointed. But he can’t be mad at him because he knows. Because there’s a little part of him that would have done the same if it would mean being held after and talked to softly with a smile. A little part of him that longs, after everything, to be ten-- no, eight-- to be eight years old again and allowed to seek the comfort of his father’s arm around him, and the sound of his voice telling some rambling nothing story, but for Crosby’s ears alone.

 

    That attention had been rare, even before he changed, that level of it. They’d had different furniture-- his dad hadn’t had a Chair, he’d had his end of the sofa they’d had, and if Crosby was getting underfoot or too worked up and his dad was there instead of in his office… He was in his office less, back then. If Crosby was getting to be unmanageable, Uncle Tommy would scoop him up-- sometimes catching him mid-run-- and he’d set him down in the crook of his dad’s arm. Say ‘you need to deal with your son’ like… like it was a good thing, and his dad would smile over it, tug Crosby in close and tell him to behave, still smiling. He’d promise he was behaving, and he would. For as long as his dad would hold him there and talk to him, he was the best behaved kid you could ask for.

 

    Sometimes he’d run wild if he knew his dad was just watching the news in the living room, so that he’d be corralled into sitting still with him.

 

    Sometimes if there wasn’t something pressing that needed to be taken care of without a little kid underfoot, Uncle Tommy would settle down, not quite in the middle of the couch and not quite tucked into the far corner, the right distance to share the ottoman, the right distance to reach over and ruffle Crosby’s hair now and then. Sometimes when he did, there would be breaks in the rambling story for Crosby alone, snatches of adult conversation and indecipherable adult laughter, bits of the story Uncle Tommy might tell, even though it was never a story-story, never something from a book, only whatever his dad came up with to say.

 

    He’d do so much to have that back again, how can he be mad at Freddie, who only ever wanted someone to care about him? Who grew up without love and attention in an even starker way than Crosby has…

 

    When his dad does go to pick up dinner, with a parting ‘play nice’ that suggests he will if they will, Crosby quickly finds himself with a lapful of Freddie, clinging and shaking and wet-eyed, apologies tumbling out of him. Sober, just frantic.

 

    “Hey, hey… what?”

 

    “I know what you wanted.” He buries his face in Crosby’s neck. “I can’t be what you want me to be. I can’t do it. Cros… Crosby… no. Sorry. Forget about it.”

 

    “I can’t forget. I can never forget.”

 

    “I didn’t want… Not when you came home. But…”

 

    “But I know what he’s like. And I know what… what you’d do to have him happy with you. I’m the same way. I know.” He sighs, holding him tight.

 

    “It’s going to be okay now, though… right? You’re here. It’s… it’s okay. That’s what I’ve been telling myself, anyway.”

 

    “You… dude.” Another sigh, heavy, his eyes falling shut. “We’re a disaster, aren’t we?”

 

    “No… you’re not.”

 

    “Yeah I am. I am. I can’t… _help_ myself, around you.” He admits, rubbing Freddie’s back. “I want to protect you from him… Shit, I used to want to be just like that man, and now it fucking terrifies me.”

 

    “You’re not like him.” Freddie says. “You’re not. You’re nice… You’d take care of me…”

 

    “I wish I could.”

 

    “I’m like my old man, sometimes. Wish I wasn’t. But I know I am. Catch myself spouting the same bullshit he used to, when I get scared, when I get paranoid. And I… I know he’s wrong. He’s wrong about every-fuckin’-thing. I told you my folks used to take me to museums?”

 

    “Yeah. History museums, mostly.”

   

    “They took me to the fuckin’ Tolerance Museum, you know that? Big… big fuckin’ joke that was. My old man trying to lecture me about tolerance. Most intolerant son of a bitch you ever met. Don’t know why he bothered. And I know, you know, I know...  I know before him, his old man was kicked out of everywhere, but… I still catch myself sometimes.” He snorts. “I still catch myself sounding like him sometimes. And I know what a crock of shit it is, but it… feels good? I don’t want to be anything like the son of a bitch, except he made a lot of money and people respected him and he was, don’t get me wrong, a fucking dumbass, but… I want the world to look at me the way it looks at him. And maybe I’m always gonna be just a fucking dumbass myself, but I could wear a nice suit. I could talk like a real adult, even if he’s a shitty one. And people could respect me.”

 

    “Don’t they? You’ve got a yacht. You’re a pretty big deal, that’s what I hear.”

 

    “Bigger than anyone else my age. Bigger than a couple guys who’ve been in the game as long as I’ve been alive. But… they don’t respect me. People go through me when they gotta. And they do gotta. And they don’t say shit to my face if I’ve got a couple bodyguards standing around and all but… I hear the shit they do say. I know what people think about me.”

 

    “They don’t know you. I know you…” Crosby whispers, nosing at Freddie’s hair.

 

    “They got me pretty fuckin’ well pegged, anyway. But they don’t know. I work, you know? I know my shit. I fuckin’... I _study_! And you don’t even see that. And he doesn’t see that. But I’m good at this, I found the one thing I’m good at. And everyone thinks I’m just-- Nevermind.”

 

    “Just a kid?”

 

    “No.” Freddie holds on tighter. “Forget about what they think. They don’t matter, tell me what you think.”

 

    “I think you could be good at more than one thing. I mean, I know you could be.”

 

    “I’m good at this. When I fell into it I didn’t know what the hell I was doing-- when I first started running real jobs, with my old boss. But then I… It was important. And I got good at it. I know fuckin’... as much about guns as I know about movies, and I’ve been watching movies my whole life. I’ve only been running guns a couple years. But… I guess I’ve been watching movies with guns about my whole life.” He chuckles. “I’m good at it. No one takes me seriously. But like… there’s nothing I can do about that.”

 

    “Yeah. Wait to get older.” Crosby shrugs. It’s not a great solution. They’ve never had great solutions.

 

    “It’s not that. It’s not not that. It’s me. I cut my hair and I’m still me. I catch myself saying the same shit my dad says and I’m still me. I can try and sound like him or like my old boss or like your dad, I can try, but I’m still me. And these guys are… The people who buy from me, they need me, but they don’t like that I’m… you know, fuckin’ queer, sometimes. Some guys don’t care. Some guys, maybe they go that way a little too and it’s cool. But some guys, you know. What I do is-- It’s different. It’s half outside this world, this like… fuckin’ macho world where even the guys I _know_ like to suck dick, they gotta pretend. And fuck that, you know? I don’t pretend. I don’t gotta pretend, I’m the guy with the guns. If they don’t like it, they can buy from someone else and they can pay out the ass if there’s no one else with what I got waiting. If they really don’t like it, I’m not afraid to take someone out. But that’s not it, you know? If that was _it_ I’d get it, I’d hate it but I’d get it. But it’s not. I don’t know what it is. It’s just me.”

 

    “It’s not you. Maybe it’s a shitty fucking reason, like the gay thing, or the age thing, but it’s not just you, okay? You’re paranoid. It’s not some unchangeable whole… like, thing where they just hate you, they don’t know you to hate you. They don’t respect you yet because you’re not your old boss and they’re figuring it out still, maybe, and you gotta pay your dues, but they… You’re being paranoid, okay? You’re coming down and you’re still feeling it a little, you’re jumpy and you’re looking for trouble…”

 

    “You don’t see ‘em, you don’t know.”

 

    “I know you. And you look even younger than you are, dude, of course they don’t like… just respect you off the bat. But you can earn that. You know your shit, right? You’re the guy with the guns. You just have to keep… keep working it.” He sighs, just cradling Freddie close, just soaking up the warmth of him. How it feels to be close like this. The scent of his hair. He doesn’t have his robe, and he really should, it’s winter. Even with the house warm, even in LA, it’s winter and here’s Freddie, recently too strung out to worry about having anything on but his shorts. Crosby snags the afghan off the back of the sofa and wraps it around him.

 

    “You don’t know the shit they say about me.”

 

    “No. I don’t. I don’t need to. You think they don’t say shit about everyone? I hear a lot of rumors from guys like the ones you sell to, and ninety percent of it is bullshit, okay? They like to feel big and they like to talk. Don’t read too much into it.”

 

    Freddie looks up at him, something heavy and heartbroken in his eyes. “Ninety percent, huh?”

 

    “Ninety percent of the shit I do hear. Completely bogus. Completely made up. Good or bad, completely bullshit.” He promises. “It’s really good to see you, Freddie… I-- I’ve been thinking about you a lot. Missing… stuff.”

 

    Freddie slides out of his lap, wrapping himself more securely in the afghan before tucking himself up against Crosby’s side, under his arm.

 

    “Missed you.” He sighs. His eyes close, smudged purple from lack of sleep. “All the time. How’s school? Is it good?”

 

    “Yeah. Just had the winter show. I had a piece.”

 

    “Like the last one?”

 

    “Yeah.” He nods. He hadn’t shown his piece for last spring’s show… but he’d mentioned having one, even if he hadn’t described it.

 

    “I’ll buy it.” Freddie offers.

 

    “No, don’t. You-- you don’t want it. Really.”

 

    “I do… I want it. I’ll buy it, if no one else has. I’ll put it up and… I dunno. Take good care of it, I guess. Keep it out of sunlight and shit, like you’re supposed to. Mostly, anyway.”

 

    “You don’t want this one, Freddie.” Crosby cups his face in one hand, thumb stroking over his cheek. “I’ll draw you something if you want. Extra present, okay? But… you don’t want this one.”

 

    “I want ‘em all. I’m fuckin’ greedy. I want all the things you make… want a fuckin’... private gallery.”

 

    “I’ll draw you something. Anything you want.”

 

    “I want what I always want.” He whispers. “I want everything I can’t have.”

 

    “I’ll give it to you.” Crosby smiles, gentle, bends his head until his lips barely touch soft swept-back waves of hair. He’s found a good length, a style that suits him… of course that only makes it hard not to touch. “Happy secular gift giving opportunity.”

 

    “Happy Hanukkah.” Freddie snorts. “And whatever else. Christmas and… yeah. Secular...gift-giving day.”

 

    “I’ll leave it for you when I go. We’ll figure out a place. You can hide it on you when you go.”

 

\---

 

71- The Wolf King

 

    He doesn’t feel good about leaving them alone, exactly, but there’s a whole week in which to watch things. Better to give the impression he trusts them. He doesn’t-- not half as much as he had trusted them that summer. Even with that little trip down to the lookout that they both claimed innocence over, he trusts them less now.

 

    One year ago, from the coming end of the week. One year ago that he’d found them. He can’t not consider it happening again.

 

    Acapulco had been a little too excited to see Crosby. And Crosby… oh, he never did like seeing Acapulco high, but before last year, it had been whining about how he needed to control him, about how Acapulco had no boundaries when he was high, and now… now his jaw gets tight and he avoids looking altogether. Almost… almost like he cares.

 

    Acapulco had resisted again. Had he known which day Crosby was coming home? There’s no way of their keeping in touch, he knows who talks to Crosby. He takes care to be sure Acapulco doesn’t talk to Crosby. Had he been reluctant because of him, though, or because of his recent experience? Still, he hadn’t held out too long… hand in his hair, kisses to his neck, just the right words, he’d come around.

 

    When he comes in with dinner, Acapulco is sleeping on the couch, Crosby is watching TV. Not connected, not looking guilty… and all he has to do is hold up the takeout bag to see a little glimmer of that adoration on Crosby’s face. Conflicted, but there. As long as it’s there, he has something to work with.

 

    “Daddy’s home. You two behaving? Hungry, kiddo?”

 

    “Yeah.” Crosby hops up from the couch to meet him, taking the bag and heading for the kitchen to grab plates. “He’s just been sleeping it off.”

 

    “All right, well you dig in, I’ll wake him.” He says, waving Crosby on. There’s a split second of hesitation before Crosby heads on to the dining room, leaving him to double back to the living room.

 

    Acapulco jerks awake before he reaches for him-- no surprise, the only surprise is that he was sleeping at all-- looking around the room a moment in confusion, but a warm, familiar come-on smile spreads across his face once he gets his bearings.

 

    “Hey, Daddy. Just you and me, huh?”

 

    “Crosby’s in the other room with dinner. Come on, up.” He jerks his head towards the doorway.

 

    Acapulco’s down from his high, but he doesn’t have much appetite. Picks at his food instead of wolfing it down. It’s a change the Wolf King is used to, but Crosby isn’t. Oh, and Crosby doesn’t like it at _all_.

 

     Even if they kept apart the rest of the year, even if that moment on the lookout was innocent, there’s no denying Crosby _cares_ about Acapulco. It’s in every darting worried glance to the boy’s plate, the way he doesn’t so much as shift in his seat on finishing his own meal. The way he has to master himself a moment when Acapulco sees the empty plate and the unmoving Crosby and just tries to offer him more from his own plate.

 

     If he thought they could be just friends, it wouldn’t matter so much. But after last year, he doesn’t think that.

 

     When Acapulco gives up on picking at any more food, it’s Crosby who rises to put the leftovers away for him, brooding a bit over it.

 

     His mood is a little better when presents come out. No surprises from Crosby there-- books. He’d counted on Acapulco’s presence, he’d bought him one… He’s a little too happy about getting an apron with little… kitcheny things in the pockets, too. Although at least it’s a nice, professional-looking non-novelty apron, maybe he can toss out the old one.

 

     This year, he doesn’t bother saving the lingerie for the poolhouse in private. He just keeps an eye on the hastily-smothered flare of upset that crosses his son’s face when Acapulco fawns over the gift.

 

     Is it one-sided? Maybe. Acapulco’s got no self-control, a lot could happen if only Crosby really had the inclination. But feelings? No… feelings is something he needs to shut down. Crosby needs to learn now, before it’s too late-- Crosby needs to understand that feelings are a mistake. That Acapulco is a bad bet.

 

     And for Crosby, he is. The worst kind. A boy his age who can’t say no to trouble, an Icarus… Before it’s too late, Crosby needs to see what happens to an Icarus. What happens to a boy who puts too low a price on his own life and rockets himself towards danger. A boy who lets you watch him self destruct… no, no, he’s not for Crosby.

 

     The Wolf King could keep him around longer, if he could just make Crosby understand that Acapulco wasn’t worth getting invested in… he likes him. Or, he likes…

 

     He likes how easy it is. He can dress him up pretty, which isn’t his thing-- not the silk and lace itself, which he could give or take. It’s the control, the fact that when he says ‘wear this for Daddy’, Acapulco _will_. It’s the fact that Acapulco is short and skinny-- he misses the hair, the hair completed the picture, but even without it, the boy is small, his face losing some of its baby softness, but still a… a soft face. A face that is only just outgrowing the ambiguity of youth. And what it is growing into is not…

 

     He doesn’t look tough. He probably never will. He’s not square-jawed and handsome, no cleft chin and high cheekbones. Nothing in his face or his body that aligns too closely to Orian’s type, a type the Wolf King is not beholden to. The Wolf King can want a pretty young thing, slender and soft and eager to show off. The Wolf King is a powerful man, and powerful men often do want that sort of toy, a sweet little thing to set on your knee or watch by the pool.

 

     He’s always liked the boys he pulls from his pack. They appeal in ways Acapulco can’t, but they also twist the knife in ways Acapulco never could. He’d learned early on not to pick the ones that looked too like Tommy, and yet… there were always memories he didn’t want anyone else to touch off in him. Allowing himself to fall under the sway of a broad-chested young man who answered his every request with the deference they owed their boss, well… It’s easier to get away from that before he can let himself slip, let himself feel something.

 

\---

 

72- Manfred

 

    He doesn’t sleep. He can’t. He stands at the glass wall of the poolhouse and watches the house and wishes Crosby’s window faced his.

 

    He wishes…

 

EXT., POOLHOUSE, NIGHT- Manfred slips out

 

     No.

 

EXT., POOLHOUSE, NIGHT- FREDDIE slips out to the lounger. It’s winter, too cold to spread himself out. He huddles on it with his knees tucked up and his arms wrapped around them. Push in to a close-up of Freddie’s pensive face, his hunched shoulders. The slightest tremor. Crosby crosses behind, out of focus, and then his UCLA hoodie is draped around Freddie’s shoulders.

 

MUSIC CUE: “I Think We’re Alone Now”

 

ECU on the way Freddie’s hand grips the fabric. Pan up, keeping that tight focus, to where Crosby’s hand closes over Freddie’s shoulder. Cut to a wide shot of Freddie rising from the lounger, pull back even more as Crosby’s arms come up around him. Cut to another ECU, their lips meeting. The first time in a long time. Crosby is hesitant, gentle. Freddie is not. Medium shot as they part, only to hold hands. Crosby tugs Freddie towards the back lawn, and pull back as they take off together.

 

    He doesn’t know where to. There’s nothing to run to. But they do anyway.

 

    Maybe to a close shot of the two of them, safe in the hollow of the hedge-- one plastic dinosaur in frame next to Crosby’s head, as their lips meet again and again. Maybe they just go there…

 

    Maybe it’s not a realistic movie, maybe they don’t need to have a place to go because when they reach the end of the lawn they just keep going and the air takes them, maybe as long as Crosby’s hand is in his they can fly, maybe it’s that kind of story now, it’s any kind of story as long as he can focus on it and make his brain work and construct the scenes and line up the shots. That’s all it needs to be.

 

END MUSIC CUE


	25. It Only Makes it Worse to Live Without It

73- Manfred

 

    “Did you get me a new apron just so I would let you wear my old one?” Crosby teases, tying the strings for him.

 

    “You always let me wear your old one. I got you a new one so you wouldn’t… I dunno. Get splattered anyway.” He shrugs. “I like wearing this one.”

 

    He doesn’t say it’s safer, if Crosby doesn’t. He doesn’t say it’s hard not to joke about kissing him and the jokes are too real, and one of these days he’ll offer to kiss him out at the grill in full view of the Wolf King and no one will be laughing.

 

    He does what Crosby directs him to, straightening up whenever they’re checked on, relaxing when the Wolf King disappears again-- and when he’s there, Manfred has to look put-upon and upset to be made to work, Crosby has to sneer a little more while his father stares him down.

 

    Alone, Crosby kisses the top of his head again, alone they talk softly about nothing in particular. Alone, he’s glad to learn how to cook-- he doesn’t need to now, he could hire someone to cook every meal for him, but it’s not about being able to feed himself. He still doesn’t really like doing it, and since falling off the wagon, he’s… maybe been not super regular about it. But being in the kitchen with Crosby, being walked through what to do, it’s different. He just likes having Crosby show him things, he just likes having Crosby believe he’s capable of any kind of basic self-care in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He likes the food Crosby makes, even when he’s not hungry, likes the way Crosby glows over any praise, the way he even seems to smile brighter just seeing him eat at all.

 

    Being in the kitchen with Crosby reminds him of easier times. Thanksgiving, before… before so much, but they had had something, when they’d been in the kitchen together, when he’d been trusted with little jobs and allowed to sit around and watch… they had had something. Even then, they’d had something.

 

\---

 

74- The Wolf King

 

    The Wolf King doles out just a little praise at dinner, Crosby’s second night home for the holidays-- for Crosby, and for Acapulco who had been roped into making himself useful instead merely getting underfoot.

 

    Maybe that’s part of it, of last year… he hadn’t given the boy the right balance of attention, and then when he had been out of town, well… If he had been at home, he could have kept that balance where it needed to be, but with the surprise trip, he just hadn’t had it right.

 

    He makes sure to thank Acapulco for his part, even if he doubts he did very much, and he gets the fawning look of adoration he wants in return, as well as Crosby’s familiar look of pleasure at having his efforts recognized. That’s all he wants, really, that’s all he wants. To know that he’s needed, respected-- feared, a little, when it’s appropriate-- loved. He may not do… emotional attachment, but to be loved, why shouldn’t he want that? After a life of fighting to prove himself, after clawing his way to the top and building to ever greater heights, was it not his due to be respected? With everything he has in his power to give or to take, was it not his due to be needed-- or feared? And with the careful work that he put into his every interaction, with the kindnesses he gave his employees and the loyalty with which he treated his few friends, was it not his due to be loved?

 

    His men think he’s a good boss to have. His household staff adores him. And they should-- anyone who works for him is free to come to him with any problem, and he’s indulgent in giving his help to those who are ready to reward him with their loyalty.

 

    And their loyalty and their adoration, it’s good. It really is. Acapulco’s is no better than anyone else’s, except that he has invested so much into him and deserves a return on that investment. But Crosby… Crosby is his _son_. That means something-- or it should. Oh, when he had believed Crosby could have been playing Acapulco, using sex as a weapon, trying to remove him… But it’s too clear now that Crosby does have some kind of emotional attachment, and that…

 

    Well, it hurts. It hurts to imagine his son deciding even once to choose this boy over his loyalty to his father. To choose to be anything to Acapulco over being hopeful, adoring little Crosby to his dear old dad. Is it too much to want his son’s ultimate loyalty? Hasn’t he given him all the things a young man needs? Sent him to a good college, taught him well? Made his problems disappear-- oh, not always, but maybe once or twice too often? Given him a good life and only asked for such a little thing in return?

 

    Crosby’s loyalty does matter, in a way no one else’s does. Crosby… well, he’s the one person the Wolf King can’t replace, his heir apparent, his flesh and blood… the one who stayed. And he’s put so much into trying to shape Crosby into a good heir, one who could really make it, he’s done so much to prepare him for this life. All he has ever asked that boy is to become hard enough to thrive in their world, and to love him. Undividedly.

 

    But Crosby will understand. He doesn’t yet, and he will. Before it’s too late, before he can… before this can become something, before he gives years of his heart to a boy destined to destroy it, he needs to learn why he shouldn’t do that. And then, well… then he’ll understand. He might be hurt at first, but he will understand in time.

 

    That night, in the pool house, Acapulco pulls back from the offer of a little coke, and this time, the Wolf King doesn’t press him.

 

    “Baby, is this because of that, uh, that other night? Oh, you should have told me yesterday that was why you didn’t want to.” He coos, rubbing Acapulco’s shoulder, watching doubt and fear melt into surprised relief. “I wouldn’t have given you that much, oh, honey, now I know your limits, Daddy’s going to be careful with you… Daddy’s going to give you _just the right amount_ from now on. But honey, if you don’t want to tonight, just say so, it’s okay.”

 

    Acapulco is shaky, and he melts into an embrace, the baggie tucked away. He wants it, it’s in his eyes, he wants it and he doesn’t. But that’s just fine…

 

    “A couple of days without any, is that what you want?”

 

    “Yeah, a few days maybe.”

 

    “Well let’s take a little, uh, a little break. And see how you feel.” He strokes his hair and feels him shiver. “A couple of days… You go a couple days without. That’s fine.”

 

    “Th-thank you…”

 

    “There’s nothing to thank.” He says, although he supposes he wouldn’t be very happy not to be thanked… he likes being thanked. He likes to feel that his good moods and benevolences are appreciated.

 

     A couple days, and then, just the right amount. He can promise that, easy.

 

\---

 

75- Crosby

 

    It’s too chilly to swim, but Freddie takes advantage of the hot tub. When Crosby wakes up early from a nightmare he can’t shake, he sees him out there in the pre-dawn, relaxing in the heat. The longing hits him hard and sharp, but the idea of being spotted sharing the hot tub from the office window… His dad wasn’t a very early riser as a rule, not this early anyway, but he always went to his office first thing…

 

    He waves from the sliding glass door, cup of coffee in hand, and Freddie waves back, but Crosby just has to shake his head at the quick little beckoning hand that invites him to join.

 

    They made this rule, no sharing, no skinny dipping, he couldn’t even change it for the pool, much less the hot tub. If they were spotted…

 

    Freddie is back in the hot tub again after breakfast, and watching his dad ogle him through the glass is almost too much to deal with.

 

    That afternoon, he goes out, promising to bring home groceries-- a job his dad could send anyone with a list to do, but Crosby thinks he likes when he offers-- another way he can play the dutiful son. Another way he can strive to please.

 

    He doesn’t start with groceries. When he comes home, Freddie’s stretched out on the couch, minimally dressed, under the Wolf King’s appreciative watchful eye, and after Crosby puts the groceries away, he comes into the living room and throws the other shopping bag at him.

 

    “Okay, dude, new deal. If you’re going to be hogging the hot tub all break, you’re either going to get out when I want a turn, or you’re going to suit up.” He says, shoulders tensing under his father’s scrutiny.

 

    “You really have that big a problem with a little nudity?”

 

    “Yeah, I have a problem with it, and I have been putting up with it for a long time and I’m done. Maybe that’s all fine in the summer when we can trade off, but when it’s nice enough to use the hot tub but not the pool, I have a problem with you always having your dick out.”

 

    Freddie turns a big-eyed pout to the Wolf King, playing up shamelessly. “ _You_ like the view, right, Daddy?”

 

    “Oh, I like the view.” He chuckles, but he gives Crosby a measuring look.

 

    “If they’re not tight and tiny enough you can take them back and buy him something else to swim in this time, I just want to be able to use my own hot tub.”

 

    “Well, let’s see them, then.”

 

    He motions for Freddie to pull them out of the bag, and he does. Shoots Crosby another look.

 

    “Tried to find something you’d be happy with, I just want him at least as covered up as he usually is.” He shrugs, folding his arms around himself.

 

    “Try them on.” Another order, except he’s still watching Crosby more than he’s watching Freddie, watching him pointedly not look as Freddie slips out of his underwear and into the bathing suit. Watching when Crosby spares a quick look, to see if he’d gotten the size right.

 

    They are tight, and tiny, for trunks. If Freddie hadn’t re-lost what little weight he’d ever possessed, there probably wouldn’t be much gap around his thighs, if any. It fits… too well, he should have bought something baggy and left it to one of them to exchange it, something that didn’t quite fit, he showed too much attention for an act of irritated impulse.

 

    But his dad says nothing.

 

    Crosby turns in early that night, sets his alarm. And when it’s still dark outside, and cold, he joins Freddie out in the hot tub, where they still don’t dare touch, beyond the way their feet float towards the center and gently bump together.


	26. But You Gotta Pay In Cash

76- Manfred

 

    There are a couple of blissful days of near-normal. A couple of days where they’re watched on and off, but they’re able to breathe. A couple of nights where the Wolf King comes out to the poolhouse and strokes his hair, where he doesn’t bring the coke out, where he’s… indulgent.

 

    He knows it’s not real… he’s not so dumb he can’t figure that out. He knows there’s no feeling behind it, that it just pleases him for whatever reason.

 

    It doesn’t have to be real to feel good. It feels better than it ever has, he can ignore the feeling of wrongness. They don’t even have sex, that first night he comes back, after the night he’d promised to be more careful about the drugs. They make out a little, and then the Wolf King holds him in his lap, talks sweet to him a bit.

 

    Manfred would have been very happy for the sex to happen, would have liked to get off after getting worked up, but there’s something about just being kissed and held… He doesn’t know what he did to earn this, except he guesses he’s managed to keep his hands off of Crosby even sharing the hot tub, managed to never get caught doing something he shouldn’t. But he’s done all that before and not had this, not since the early days.

 

    They do have sex, the twenty-third. The Wolf King leaves the bed, takes a quick shower, and it’s business as usual, Manfred guesses, but then he comes back to the bed, gathers Manfred into his arms until the shivering stops.

 

    “Baby, baby… oh, honey, look at you. You didn’t cover up, look at you… You need someone to warm you up.” He coos, slipping under the covers and gathering Manfred against his chest again. “How about I stay with you tonight? Maybe… maybe in the morning, we’ll do something special. Something fun. Little… special thing for the holidays, huh? If I stay with you tonight? Keep you warm?”

 

    He could fucking cry. He won’t, but there’s a little piece of him that could, because he wrote that fucking film ten times or more, didn’t he? Before Crosby, before everything, he used to hang on hoping for half of this, and now he wishes he didn’t still want it.

 

    But he does.

 

\--

 

77- The Wolf King

 

    Physically, it’s perfectly comfortable. Acapulco isn’t an unpleasant weight, he might be feeling the cold but he’s not cold to the touch… There’s nothing not to like.

 

    The Wolf King feels a crawling revulsion just the same. To spend the night in the poolhouse with him-- with anybody, with the wrong anybody. It isn’t personal. He never was good at sharing his bed.

 

    Well, Tommy. Tommy was the exception. But it wasn’t magic, it wasn’t easy, it was because Tommy knew how to share, it was because Tommy knew the kind of animal Orian Franklin was and it suited him fine… it was because they’d cared enough to learn each other and learn to fit. It wasn’t some kind of emotional bullshit, it was work. Maybe their reason for putting in the work was emotional, but still. It was never bullshit.

 

    His wife never did put in the work. But that was fair. He doesn’t begrudge her, marrying at nine-fucking-teen, for wanting a different kind of husband than the one she’d gotten. He never had any intention of putting in that kind of work for her. In his own way he had cared, though, because he never once complained to her for those little things it was fair of her to expect, fair of her to think she could take, that he couldn’t comfortably give. In his own way, he cares still, and he finds it easier to care with her up in Bakersfield. He’s probably easier to love with time and distance between them, too.

 

    There were other boys he tried spending the night with, after… when he’d thought maybe he would enjoy it, that his coming to enjoy those nights with Tommy and the cold emptiness of his bed after meant he was comfortable sharing. Nothing on them that he wasn’t.

 

    He’s not going to sleep well, but he can get a nap in later. Staying the night is important. He has to be _there_. When the morning comes, the same morning that he arrived home to find them together one year ago, he has to be with Acapulco, and Acapulco has to feel… he has to feel whatever it is soft people feel after a night in someone’s arms. Prepared to give a hell of a lot, prepared to please. To give up every ounce of his free will for a smile and a damn good kiss. He has to be overwhelmed.

 

    He wakes Acapulco with a blowjob-- well, technically, Acapulco wakes at four in the morning all on his own, but the Wolf King is still awake, had barely dozed off and on, and so once the boy stirs, he’s ready. Ready to purr out promises and slither down the bed and make sure he’s feeling _compliant_.

 

    He spends hours on him-- they shower together, they eat breakfast in bed, between rounds of sex or just making out, just keeping him touched, loved on, keeping him in the mood to say yes, and when Acapulco laughs weakly and blushes and says he doesn’t know if he has another round in him, well… the Wolf King knows how to change that.

 

    A little at a time, so he doesn’t worry, so he can’t keep track, spread over the morning at first, and a careful eye. It’s important the timing be just right…

 

    Acapulco talks-- too much-- about sex and about movies, and once or twice a little edge of the paranoid ramblings, but the Wolf King does his best to steer him towards happier topics.

 

    “Do you want a nice boy?” He whispers in Acapulco’s ear, feels him shiver when he strokes his hair. “Do you want me to do that for you?”

 

    “You’re being nice. You’re being so nice. Um, yeah, yeah. I want that.” Acapulco nods, tries to worm in closer to him.   


    “Okay… you’ll get your nice boy. Do a little more with me, honey, and then you will. And honey? Remember, only what I give you. If you want to feel good, you’ll _just_ take what I give you.”

 

\--

 

78- Crosby

 

    The house is quiet, well into the morning, the blinds drawn over at the poolhouse. Freddie hadn’t come in for breakfast, hadn’t appeared at the hot tub, and maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Maybe today Freddie needs to avoid him, and that’s fair. As much as he wants to see him, to just be close to him, today…

 

    They’d been having a good week, mostly. A rocky start, too many emotions too close to the surface, but… but Freddie had been staying clean a couple days, they’d had actual time to talk, even if they had to be ready to pretend at any moment not to be too friendly.

 

    He’d made progress on Freddie’s other gift. He doesn’t like it, but he knows Freddie will.

 

    It’s not Freddie, but his dad, who comes in from the poolhouse, and the jealousy twists in Crosby’s gut, and he wonders if this is on purpose. If this is to rub it in, that he had to go out there and have him this morning out of every morning he could have him, that he had to saunter in with his robe open and his hair a mess, looking loose and relaxed, spring in his step. As if Crosby needed the reminder.

 

    “Morning, kiddo.”

 

    “Morning, Dad.” He greets, tries not to let any of what he feels come to the surface. He listens to his dad in the kitchen, the sound of the espresso machine, the gentle clattering of dishes and silverware, the pop of the toaster.

 

    His dad settles into his chair, with toast and coffee, takes a bite, a careful sip. Glances at the TV, glances at his watch, and Crosby focuses on his sketchbook, until a little cough gets his attention.

 

    “Yeah?”

 

    “Cros, could you do your old man a favor? I, uh… haha, I promised, I promised Acapulco I’d bring him back something from the house, kitchen out there’s… it’s pretty empty. But, now I’m _settled_ , and… Just, would you run him out a, a bowl of cereal or, or something? You know what he likes.”

 

    “You… want me to go out to the poolhouse with him?”

 

    “Mm. Just to take him something, yeah. You don’t mind, do you, son?”

 

    Crosby shakes his head, getting to his feet. “No, I don’t mind. You put your feet up, Dad.”

 

    “Thanks, kiddo.”

 

    This isn’t good, he knows that, this is a trap somehow. A test? Either to make sure he can walk out there and see Freddie, mussed and naked over the covers, and come right back without wasting a second on wanting him, or it’s got nothing to do with what he _does_ , it’s just to force him to _see_ , to mark one year since their indiscretion by making him look at the boy he loves, fucked out and spent as the property of the Wolf King, an all important step away from allowing Crosby to walk in on anything, from having to face quite that sight, but to make him face the aftermath just the same. To really rub it in his face.

 

    When he does get out to the poolhouse, it’s worse than all the debauchery he’d imagined. He knows something’s wrong the second he has the door open, something about the way Freddie is sitting, listing to the side and struggling to keep himself propped up, shaky-- twitchy. There’s a broken mirror on the floor at the foot of the bed. The scent of bile thick on the air.

 

    “ _Crosby_?” Freddie croaks his name out, staring hard. “N-no… wait, no-- Cros-- Crosby?”

 

    “What the fuck did he do to you?” He crosses the room, cereal bowl breaking when it hits the floor.

 

    Freddie is burning up, his heartbeat is _visible_ , Crosby doesn’t need to ask what was done to him…

 

    “He… _fuuuck_ , fuck, Cros… I-- I gotta, I gotta, doctor, now, or-- or it’s, I’m gonna…”

 

    “Yeah-- okay, yeah, I can do that.” Crosby nods, finding Freddie’s bag, pulling out a pair of pants, a shirt, fumbling him halfway into them despite the shaking and the twitching and the occasional moment of outright resistance.

 

    Freddie is panicking, and Crosby doesn’t blame him, he’d be panicking too if he could afford to. He doesn’t bother to find shoes, just picks him up-- fuck, he shouldn’t weigh so little-- and sidesteps all the broken glass and china.

 

    He carries him around the side of the house, rather than through, not wanting to have to fumble with doors until he reaches his car, and if he hadn’t thrown on his jacket to go out to the poolhouse, he’d have to go back for his keys, but he has them, he has them…

 

    That… that was what he was supposed to find. He can’t quite wrap his head around it, but there are no accidents, not with his dad. If he wasn’t meant to find him like that, then Freddie wouldn’t have had access to enough coke to do _this_ to him.

 

    He only knows one place he thinks he _can_ take him, and the drive is so long… He can barely buckle Freddie into the passenger’s seat, when a sudden bout of fear and confusion has him struggling to get away, but he manages. All he can do is manage and keep managing.

 

    “Just hold on. Just hold on… Freddie, babe, do that for me, do this for me, hold on. Breathe, okay? Keep breathing.”

 

    He twists in his seat but he doesn’t reach to try and unbuckle himself. He tears at his shirt and gasps for air and Crosby drives as fast as he can without risking running them both off the swerving road through the hills. At least there, they don’t have traffic, but once they hit the highway…

 

    It’s not as bad as it could be. Maybe most people are already at their holiday destinations, or won’t set out until the evening, or the day of. It’s still traffic, there are still lights to obey.

 

    Every time he can see Freddie convulsing next to him out of the corner of his eye, practically feel it, painful-seeming, it sends another cold, sick pulse into the pit of his stomach, but none of that could prepare him for the clenching fear when the convulsions stop.

 

    “Freddie? _Freddie_! Fuck, fuck, _fuck_!” He slams a hand down on his horn, though there’s nothing the other cars can do about that that they weren’t already doing, that they’ve all been doing since he got onto and then off of the ten. Everyone’s got someplace they want to go. They just don’t need to get there as bad as Crosby does.

 

    He can’t let himself think about it. He can’t let himself think about anything except getting them there. He knows the entries, at least. At least his dad had shown him this past summer where to get in.

 

    Freddie’s breathing, but it’s not good. When he parks in the alley behind the Hotel Artemis, Freddie’s still breathing. He gets him out-- no fighting this time, but what he wouldn’t give to have it back. Carries him in, takes the elevator up the way he’d been told to, been told exactly what he needed to do if his dad couldn’t make it up under his own power, if he wasn’t able to direct him at the time.

 

    When he steps out of the elevator, the way forward is barred, a small woman standing on the other side.

 

    “Hey-- hey!” He rushes forward as far as he can, Freddie still clutched tight to his chest, head lolling. “Hey, please--”

 

    “Did he tell you to find this place?” She cuts in. “That’s against the rules, that’s an instant revoke of his membership. He didn’t tell you you’re supposed to call in ahead.”

 

    “No, he didn’t tell me about this place. My dad did.” Crosby shakes his head. She stares at him hard, then nods.

 

    “Orian’s kid? You party with that boy? That what happened last time?”

 

    “No. _No_. Last--? No, please, you have to-- you have to take him, he stopped moving and-- Please, you have to!”

 

    “Put his wrist up on that scanner.” She instructs, and Crosby manages to, while she calls a code he doesn’t know into her walkie. “Okay. We’ll take him, but you stay on your side, you don’t come through. There are no visitors at the Artemis.”

 

    “That’s _fine_ , just take him, just _help_ him!” He screams.

 

    “You can watch your tone with me, too, kid. Your daddy doesn’t pay me to be nice to you. I’ll do my job, you just take it easy and stay behind the line.” She says.

 

    About the biggest guy he’s ever seen comes around the corner with a gurney, rolls it past the door so that Crosby can lay Freddie down, and then they wheel Freddie away, the door slams shut on him again.

 

    He paces for a while, and when he can’t pace any more, he sinks down to sit against the bars. He has no idea how long he’s been there, but surely by now…

 

    “You’re here?”

 

    His head jerks up, and he blinks back tears, staring up at her. “Where is he? Is he--? If-- if--”

 

    “He’s sleeping it off, and he needs to. Didn’t expect you to stick around, thought this was a drop-off.”

 

    “Who would take him home if I left?” He scrubs at his face, self-conscious.

 

    “Good question. I’ll let you know when he’s set to go. Look… you his friend?”

 

    Crosby hesitates, then nods. “I guess I am.”

 

    “You try to keep him off the stuff?”

 

    “He was, the past few days--”

 

    “Yeah. Well. It’s not your fault. You’re not responsible for him. Someone should have been… but that’s not on you. Someone should have kept an eye on him a long time before today… Sit tight there for a minute, I’ll bring him out to you once he’s set to go.”

 

    Crosby just nods and leans against the bars. When he hears the squeak of the returning gurney, he scrambles up to his feet, gathering a groggy Freddie into his arms the moment the door is open. He holds him hard a long moment, nose buried in Freddie’s hair. He smells awful, sex and bile beneath the antiseptic hospital smell, but Crosby breathes him in anyway. He gathers him up and carries him down to the car, leans the seat way back so that Freddie can lie back and sleep on the drive. He’s still sedated enough to…

 

    He takes his time, going home. Might as well.

 

    “Crosby?” Freddie rasps, when they’re back on the ten.

 

    “Yeah… I’m here.”

 

    “Where’s here?”

 

    “My car. It’s-- it’s going to be okay, I-- Because you’ve got, you’ve got me now. To fix you. Okay?”

 

    “Thanks.” He sighs, and there’s a long moment where Crosby thinks he might have fallen back asleep, before he speaks again. “For lying. I’m sorry…”

 

    “No. No, _he_ should be sorry.”

 

    “He’s not.”

 

    “No. But he _should_ be. Fuck, if I could only make him sorry…”

 

    “You…” Freddie starts, and then stops. “Shit… oh, Cros, shit, I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry--”

 

    “I know why you did it. Don’t-- It’s okay. Just… try, that’s all. Just try not to, next time, just-- or just stay away from him, just don’t go back to him. I know you can clean up, you’ve done it before.”

 

    Freddie hums softly, and does sleep. He’s asleep when Crosby finally pulls back up in front of the house, and he gathers him back up to carry him in. He’d kick down the front door if one of his dad’s men hadn’t seen him coming towards the door, arms full, if he hadn’t opened it for him.

 

    “What’s this?” The Wolf King asks, rising from his chair as Crosby passes through the living room, heading for the hall back to the bedrooms.

 

    “You know what the fuck this is.” He snaps.

 

    “And where are you taking him, exactly?”

 

    “My room, unless you’ve cleaned up the broken glass and shit in the poolhouse.”

 

    “Don’t be stupid, Cros--”

 

    “He could have died!”

 

    “You can drop him on the couch, he can sleep there.”

 

    “I’m not going to just drop him on the couch, he-- he could have _died_ , you could have _killed_ him!”

 

    “Crosby. I give him drugs once in a while, sure. But do you really think he couldn’t get his own? You think he couldn’t go drop, hell… forty bucks’d do some damage if he went to the right parties, he’s going to wind up the same way with or without me. I was hoping you’d see that. I was hoping you could understand. Acapulco, he’s not permanent. He can’t be permanent-- he’s just not a ‘permanent’ kind of boy. Pretty, but… no self-preservation.”

 

    “He’s sleeping it off in my room. I’m taking him.”

 

    “You leave the door open, if you’re going to have boys in your room.”

 

    “Oh, oh-- _fuck_ you, that-- I’m an adult, and he-- he could have died, and you don’t even _care_ , you don’t care, and you _knew_ , and it took over an hour to even take him to your hospital, and you think I’m sneaking him into my room so I can _fuck_ him, after all that? You really think, after I sat in that fucking cage for three hours-- after I-- Five hours of my day, just to make sure he’d be alive, and I’m, I’m gonna be horny after all that? That’s _sick_.”

 

    He’s crossed a line, but he couldn’t stop the anger bubbling up in him, the outrage. But he sees where he’s crossed it, he sees the change on the Wolf King’s face.

 

    “Crosby T. Franklin, while you’re in there, I’d like you to think long and hard about what you’ve just said to your father. And I’d like you to think long and hard about whether you think this is protecting him. This little, ah, stunt of yours. You think about the last time he touched you, because that was a _warning_. So you take him to your room if you want, but… that was a warning. And if you let him touch you again… Well. I don’t think a nice boy would set him up to take that kind of a fall. So you think about that. You think long and hard about that.”

 

    He clutches Freddie tighter, feels him stir a little. He can’t find his tongue, all the fight in him fizzled out at just two words in particular.

 

    “I think I’ve made myself clear.”


	27. But Then a Lot of Nice Things Turn Bad Out There

79- The Wolf King

 

    He’d heard Crosby’s car pulling out, and he’d estimated two and a half hours. For the round trip and the check-in, figuring it out the first time and dealing with potential traffic, he’d figured two and a half hours. Enough time to take a nap and still be up when Crosby got back.

 

    And then he’d been gone half the day, come home angry and defiant with that boy in his arms. Taken him into his room and closed the door, in direct defiance. He’s never done that before…

 

    He can’t understand it at all… Acapulco, for all the trouble he’d caused, was worth this? He doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like the voice in the back of his head asking him if he thought it through. He did think it through and then Crosby went off-script. The voice in his head asking if he shouldn’t have spoken to him a year ago instead. When the betrayal was fresh? How could he have? No, they should have come to him, before, they should have asked for his blessing-- his permission. Not… not sneaking around behind his back, that was where the canker gnawed, so to say. The _betrayal_.

 

    For a while, he tries going to his office, the door open so that he can listen for Crosby, for any noise from his room, but he can’t get anything done like that, and the voice in the back of his head is just loud enough to make him uneasy, there. He can quiet it with a little bourbon, but not enough to make him less than sharp… he has to stay sharp, when Crosby has grown so unpredictable. And when he’s sharp, he can’t ignore the bone deep knowledge that a better father than him would have done differently to handle the situation. Not when he can look over and see that man holding a tiny, adoring little Crosby in the photograph over the bar. So the office is out, and pacing the hall is in.

 

    There should be a moratorium on how long a man can reprimand you from beyond the grave, on your parenting decisions.

 

    But there isn’t.

 

\---

 

80- Manfred

 

    The bed is softer than the Artemis. Definitely a bed and not a car seat, but the car was real. Softer than the poolhouse, jersey sheets, like sleeping in a giant tee shirt.

 

    It smells like being kissed on your way to the dining room table, on the top of the head, by a boy who makes you pancakes. Like crawling into his lap and letting him forgive you when you don’t deserve it. He rolls over, until his nose is buried in the pillowy duvet, and he breathes that scent in deep.

 

    “Freddie?” The bed dips, and Crosby’s voice is a whisper, and there’s a gentle hand on his shoulder.

 

    “What happened?” He asks, even though he doesn’t really want to know. He remembers more than he strictly wants to, though how much is real and how much a nightmare, he couldn’t say.

 

    “No more coke. You can’t-- you can’t do that again. You almost _died_. And he wanted me to find you. I don’t-- I don’t know if he wanted me to find you in time or not, but he wanted me to find you… Shit, you can’t go through that again, I-- your heart was going so _fast_ , so hard, and then-- then when you stopped moving, and I didn’t know if-- all I could do was drive, not even knowing if it would make a difference…”

 

    “He… on _purpose_?” Even with Crosby’s duvet and the warm hand on his shoulder, he feels as cold as he’s ever been. The Wolf King had promised him, and then he’d done that on purpose? And to hurt Crosby?

 

    “Can’t you get away? Can’t you stay away this time? I mean, Freddie, I want to see you, but not if it kills you. Not if he kills you. He _knows_ … he knows what you call me. You’re not safe here.”

   

    “I’ll fix it. I’ll stay safe enough.”

 

    Crosby’s hand moves to his cheek. “Will you?”

 

    “Yeah.”

 

    “Liar.” He sighs, but the hand stays put. “How are you feeling? You want some water?”

 

    “Okay. Cold. I’m fine, I’ll be fine though.”

 

    Crosby helps him sit up, even though he doesn’t think he needs the help, and he wraps him up in his hoodie before handing him a bottle of water.

   

    “Could you eat something?”

 

    Just the question makes his stomach roil. He shakes his head, and Crosby strokes his face, with gentle, shaky fingertips this time.

 

    “Later?”

   

    “Later.” He promises, sipping slowly at the water. For now he thinks he’ll be lucky to keep this much down, but he could probably use it. He thinks less about that, and more about the fact that the water bottle is Crosby’s, that it has been in his mouth and often. He holds the top in his own mouth and lets his tongue run over it and imagines that some degree of intimacy could transfer between them through this.

 

    It’s a dumb thought, a middle school thought, pretending sharing a drink with your crush could be as good as a kiss, but this isn’t like that, not really. He could kiss Crosby, if it was safe to, and Crosby would kiss him back. They’re not allowed to and that’s why this means something. Not because he doesn’t know what a real kiss is and wants to dream up a fraction of it, because he knows too well and can never have it again. Can only pass the touch of his mouth through objects like spies leaving secret messages in dead drops.

 

    He settles back down into Crosby’s bed when his stomach sloshes and he can’t bear any more water, even in tiny sips. Crosby pulls the covers up, and when he strokes Manfred’s hair, everything is okay. Or at least, he can pretend it is.

 

\---

 

81- Crosby

 

    He’s just going to check, that’s all. He’s going to see if the light is on under the office door, or if he hears his dad down the hall to one direction or the other. He doesn’t dare leave Freddie unguarded now, not really. Not for long. But he can at least see what it’s like outside his bedroom door.

 

    His father is right there, when he opens it, he nearly jumps out of his skin and gets a slightly raised eyebrow in return.

 

    “Holy shit, dad, give a guy a heart attack…” Crosby slips through the door, opening it as little as humanly possible and closing it fast behind himself. Keeping himself pressed back to it. “Did you need me?”

 

    “Just wanted to check on you boys. How’s he doing?”

 

    “Asleep. He just needs sleep. Why? Do you care you almost killed him?”

 

    “I don’t want your attitude right now, kiddo. Everything I do is for _you_ , and if you can’t appreciate that, well…”

 

    “How was this for me? How was this good for me?”

   

    “Because you were supposed to _learn_ , Cros. You were supposed to see a boy like that’s no good for you. He’s not some stray you can bring home and fix, he’s not going to stop. With me or without me, he’s not going to stop. Do you want him to drag you down with him? You want to give him your heart for a year, five years, _thirteen years_ and then he dies and it’s too late for you? Is that what you want?”

 

    Crosby stares, stunned. He was supposed to learn? He was… No. If this was about protecting him, why would it be today? That morning, the same morning a year later, why would he do that if it wasn’t to hurt them? And yet there’s that little part of him that wants to believe, as much as he hates it. That wants that brief tremor of some emotion in his father's voice to be real, to be for him.

 

    “Fuck’s sake, we could have just been friends if you hadn’t… I fucked up last year, that has to mean something now?”

 

    “Doesn’t it? You care about him.”

 

    “We have shit in common, we stay in the same house for days at a time, months during the summer, and I’m not allowed to care about him without it being about sex? I-- This isn’t last year! Fuck, you couldn’t just-- This isn’t last year, we haven’t done anything like that! You can’t punish me for caring if he eats! You could have just let us be friends and talk and be normal and instead we have to fucking… sneak around just to say hello like normal people, and now you’re fucking paranoid? But you made it like that, you made it so we couldn’t fucking talk!”

 

    “Language.” He says, warningly.

 

    “Things are different this year, okay? I-- I have something going, at school.” He folds his arms. “Freddie. The boy I told you about. Things are different.”

 

    He doesn’t like the long, piercing look his father fixes him with, but he withstands it.

 

    “Acapulco talks about you.”

 

    “When he’s sober or when he’s coked out of his mind?”

 

    His father snorts. “Well, Cros, I hope this time I can trust you. Because I’d hate for Acapulco to have to pay for any more mistakes. I really would. But like I said, the boy is… temporary. And you need to watch yourself with him, he does talk about you. You like this boy from school enough not to let Acapulco touch you?”

 

    “Like him enough I wouldn’t sleep with anyone else.”

 

    “Good. Good. You safe?”

 

    “Try to be. Mostly.”

 

    His dad actually looks aghast at that. “Mostly? Sorry, what’s-- Mostly? Uh, _every time_ , kiddo.”

 

    This is… surreal. This is too fucking surreal. Crosby reaches back and opens his door a crack. “Okay, fine, every time.”

 

    “Every time. I mean it, be safe.”

 

    “Not having this discussion right now.” He groans.

 

    “You’re lucky you have a father who cares enough about you to have this discussion.” He calls after him, as he retreats back into his room, locking the door.

 

    Cares.

 

    He can’t stand feeling something about that word, after everything. After he nearly killed Freddie, could have killed him… to feel a second’s worth of conflict over the idea he’s cared for disgusts him.

 

    He slips into bed, and pulls Freddie into his arms, to wait it out until dinner.

 

    “What’s he want?”

 

    “Nothing. Go back to sleep.” He whispers, kissing the top of Freddie’s head.

 

    “Slept too much.”

 

    “Just close your eyes and be still, then.”

 

    “I can do that.”


	28. And See the Place Where You Used to Live

82- Manfred

 

    When Crosby goes back to school, he engineers a work call, and a piece of business that will take him out of the city for a while. Not far… he might deal with some people who work internationally, but he does his side of things locally. He can’t leave right away as Crosby does, has to suffer through a couple more days so the timing isn’t too close. And he does suffer-- all those things he used to want are torture now, the sweetness, the idea of the Wolf King staying. The hint of his being too nice now makes Manfred’s skin crawl.

 

    He makes up for those moments he can’t help flinching away by offering more-- the moment Crosby is gone, he’s quick to offer to be the Wolf King’s in any room of the house, something fast and dirty. Fast and dirty is good, there’s no illusions, there’s no danger the way his sweetness had been dangerous. His sweetness has always been dangerous, a pretty idea to lure you in before he springs the trap, but when it’s just sex, when it’s rough or it’s quick and careless, that’s safe. That’s only what it is.

 

    The Wolf King takes him up against the wall in the hallway, only halfway to his own bedroom, which he winds up going to alone. The next day, he offers his most desperate-to-please blowjobs, whenever the Wolf King isn’t doing something, and this… this is the way he can control things, just until he can arrange to be out. To beg and to please him without letting himself be cornered, without the coke, without all those things that might be used to hurt him if he were to wait. And it works, it works. He’s able to retreat alone to the poolhouse having had a good time all over the main house, and he might not be safe there, but for these couple of days, he’s safe enough.

 

    It doesn’t feel that way. It’s clawing at his mind worse than ever, and he’d thought he was used to the paranoia. He sits up that first night, guarding the book he'd received from Crosby-- not the book itself, but the self portrait tucked inside, the secret second present. He doesn’t even dare open the book to look at it, afraid of giving away the hiding place.

 

    He doesn’t look at it until after he arranges his call, until he has to say he’s got to go and make a very special purchase. Until he’s on his yacht, where he spends an hour letting his eyes trace every line.

 

    He’d captured himself well… but he’d made himself look so sad.

 

    The paranoia makes its return once he leaves his yacht, once he makes his way to the gallery where he fears being spotted, fears some spy from the Wolf King sniffing around any place Crosby has been. But of course he’s not there-- the big opening has come and gone, he doesn’t need to be there anymore.

 

    He tells the woman working the gallery to call his business line the next time she has something by the same artist. He buys the Devotee. Maybe it was sweet of Crosby to tell him not to, but it’s no worse than the Martyr. And maybe they belong together, anyway, in the room he doesn’t sleep in.

 

    They don’t belong to anyone else. They can’t. If Crosby loves him, no one else gets to buy that.

 

    If the woman working at the gallery recognizes his face on the Devotee, she doesn’t say anything about it, at least.

 

    The Devotee and the Martyr wind up side by side. Manfred winds up going back to the Wolf King.

 

\---

 

83- Crosby

 

    He’s lying in bed trying and failing to feel something about the fact that his last piece has sold, when his phone buzzes. It’s not a number he knows, so he ignores it, returns to working on thumbnails for his next piece.

 

    The Zealot. He has the title already. The finale to a trio, maybe. He hopes. This series is tearing him apart. Not the art, he needs to be able to do something with his demons, but that he has to… that he has them…

 

    The too-thin boy, body convulsing, twisted and writhing, a dozen poses that replay themselves behind Crosby’s eyelids at night. Some of the sketches are naked, others tearing uselessly at clothes that were never on quite right to begin with. Sometimes the face is visible, too sunken, nose dripping with thick, dark blood. Sometimes the head is thrown back, tendons in the neck taut.

 

    The same number again, the next time his phone buzzes, and so he picks it up this time.

 

    _u up_ _  
_ _what r u doing new years?_

 

_Wrong number_ , he texts back.

 

    _no its not I got it from ur dad’s phone_

 

    Crosby practically throws his phone at that, although it just lands on his bed anyway. He scrambles to get it back in his hand.

 

    _WTF_

_Freddie??_

 

_yeah_

 

_Are you nuts do you want him to kill you?_

 

_relax he thinks I don’t know his password I just turned it off when he came in and complained I couldn’t open it and his has a good camera so it made more sense to just take a picture of my ass with it instead of sending him a crappy photo from mine (it’s 9653 it’s not hard to crack)_

 

_He checks my phone sometimes, you think he won’t check yours?_ Crosby is definitely breathing too fast. He’s existing too fast.

 

_counting on it he only knows about my one phone but this one has never been at the house_

_put me in ur contacts as Freddie (PS he had a lot of fun trying to rub it in my face u have a boyfriend at school and u just feel bad for me) then u gotta delete this and start over nothing incriminating_

 

    Crosby does. His heart is still beating a little fast, but his chest doesn’t feel so tight. He feels warm all over, excitement starting to overtake fear in him. A second phone, one that his father would never even see… And if he searched Crosby’s and found flirtatious messages and invitations to meet from ‘Freddie’, that would just lend credence to the cover story.

 

    _I’m not doing anything for new years, why? You got ideas?_

 

_Spend it with me._

 

Crosby bites his lip. If he asks if it’s safe, they’ll have to delete and start over… but will it be? Well, his dad will expect him to be partying with other college kids… presumably Freddie doesn’t expect to be wanted then.

 

    _Okay_.

 

    He gets an address in a separate text, and a slip number for the marina. Freddie is there, in a suit and sunglasses, actual facial hair. Crosby recognizes the way he stands and the way he moves, before he’s even close enough to see the sunglasses and the goatee. He runs to him, throws his arms around him and lifts him off his feet.

 

    “Freddie!” He laughs, spins him around before setting him back down. “Freddie! Look at you, what is this?”

   

    “Disguise. In case. Come on… come on.”

 

    “It’s not exactly you… but I mean, I like it. I mean, you look good.”

 

    “Really? Your dad hates it. He gets fuckin’ pissy if I get too fuzzy. I used to think he didn’t like the way it looks, but I think it’s the feel. I don’t think he gives much of a shit about how my face looks.”

 

    “Well, I think you’re a sight for sore eyes.”

 

    “Yeah, well, you…” Freddie starts, and falls quiet without finishing. Too much, too recent, too heavy on their minds. “You know.”

 

    “I know.”

 

    “Do you want to…?”

 

    Crosby nods, hand slipping into Freddie’s. The yacht is modest next to some of its neighbors, but a comfortable enough size for a single man to live on most of the time. A comfortable size for just the two of them to spend the evening on.

 

    He knows Freddie can’t drive a car, but he’s perfectly capable when it comes to taking the boat out onto the open water, and Crosby leans on his shoulders and just enjoys the ride as they zip along to the chosen spot.

 

    “We should have this… we should have this all the time.” Freddie says, as they spread a blanket out on the deck, as they throw down the pillows he’d pulled from his bed-- Crosby had seen his self-portrait framed by the bed. “You, me, out here where no one can reach us. Champagne and fuckin’... fireworks. We should have this whenever we want.”

 

    “We can’t. You know… you know he’d actually do it, he’d actually kill you, if he thought the two of us… We can’t be a thing like that.”

 

    “You’re here.”

 

    “Yeah, well. You know what it’s like… I couldn’t… I couldn’t walk away from you. I can’t stop myself.”

 

    “I know what that’s like.”

 

    They settle down, starting the little picnic dinner together. Waiting for the sun to finish setting. Waiting for another year. Maybe it wouldn’t really be a better one, but they could both pretend. For the rest of this one, they could pretend it made a difference. Gravitating towards each other until they’re shoulder to shoulder, and they still have hours yet to wait, the two of them alone.

 

    Crosby slips an arm around Freddie, tugging him down to lie against the pillows a while. To stay warm with him for the wait.

 

    “It’s a really nice boat. I’m glad I could come see it after all.”

 

    “Yeah… you know, this is supposed to be the biggest fireworks display in the state? Dunno how that’s true. I mean, because you’d think, like… Disney would do it bigger than the Queen Mary, right? They do that shit all the time, fireworks. But then you gotta think, well they do that shit all the time. So there’s probably… I dunno. Like the Queen Mary is saving it all up to go at once or something. Anyway, how I figure, like… some suckers are lining up and paying to get into some place to see fucking fireworks that are up in the sky for free for everyone once they set ‘em off. Why get on a crowded ship with a bunch of fuckin’ strangers or fight for a place to watch from with even more strangers, when I could pull out here and have a private show?”

 

    “Aw, you brought me out to see the biggest show in the state?”

 

    “Well, sure. Yeah, why wouldn’t I? I mean what with being able to watch it from the water, why the fuck not?”

 

    Crosby just cuddles him-- lets his lips brush Freddie’s hair. It’s as much as he dares, now. They might be safe here, but they won’t be. They won’t be safe just anywhere. They won’t be safe around his dad. They can’t afford habits, when they need to be just… friends. Friends with a little bit of awkward past.

 

    Still, just this much… just to be able to hold him while the stars come out is enough. It eases the lonely ache of pretending they’re nothing to each other, to have this.

 

    When the time is close, they separate just enough-- just enough for Freddie to open the champagne and pour two glasses, enough for the two of them to reconvene at the railing, to lean there side by side watching the Queen Mary, the night sky.

 

    “Who knows-- this could be our year.” Freddie says, and Crosby allows the lie a little longer.

 

    “I’ll toast to that.” He smiles.

 

    The fireworks go off, the sky is awash in color. They have enough distance to speak, without the noise overwhelming them, but the view is… Crosby doesn’t really want to say ‘to die for’, under the circumstances. It’s perfect.

 

    Freddie touches his arm, as midnight hits, and he swears he was only going to clink glasses and maybe say something, take a drink, but then their eyes meet, they’re lit by the fireworks, and he can’t stop himself-- their lips meet, and then he has an arm around Freddie tight, and it’s a miracle they don’t spill all the champagne, a miracle he doesn’t drop his fucking glass right into the ocean, he has Freddie’s lip between his, has his tongue in Freddie’s mouth, and they pull back breathless, lost in each other’s eyes and bathed in color.

 

    “I know. We can’t. But-- stay? Stay anyway?” Freddie reaches up, cupping Crosby’s cheek, and he’s helpless.

 

    “Just to stay.” He agrees.

 

    “Just to stay.”

 

    It’s a promise. They clink their glasses together, shaky, and drink.

 

    He stays.

 

\---

 

84- Orian

 

    He takes a bottle down to the little private lookout point.

 

    They used to go out to Surf City for New Year’s, they used to take Crosby, back when he was little. Used to park over the beach instead of fighting for bleacher space.

 

    Used to put him to bed and come see the stars.

 

    The Hunter is edging into the night sky. He knocks back a swallow and traces out the shape of it, filling in the blanks where the hills hide it from view, and he can hear the soft smile, the well-remembered ‘look’.

 

    “Your constellation.” He says, and there’s no one there to say ‘yours’ back to him.

 

    He still hears it. He’s heard it too many times to forget. Always the same. Fond. Teasing. Awed. Soft. Sweet, the way nothing else was sweet.

 

    He’d been too sweet for their world… not soft, but sweet. Not soft, except with the kiddo, he was always so soft on that boy. He was always something a little too bright to touch and a little too big to hold onto. But they had been boys, once, and Orian had believed he could.

 

    He lies back and gazes up. ‘Yours’, and they would turn to each other every time.

 

    Here in the liminal space between one year and the next, he can imagine time doesn’t march him onwards. He can stare up at the stars or he can close his eyes, and he can take himself back.

 

    His eyes fall closed and the stars remain engraved behind his eyelids as he slides two fingers into his mouth and pretends they’re not his own. Keeps them closed and pretends he’s not the one to tug his own zipper lower.

 

    “Yours.” He whispers. “Yours. Yours.”

 

    There’s no one there to say it back.

 

    He still hears it.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (sorry for the delay, had a whole... family event and got behind!)

85- Manfred

 

    Texting is a life saver. Maybe literally.

 

    He can’t really text Crosby the times he needs to the most. The times he’s at the house with the Wolf King and he can’t quite remember why it would be such a bad thing to get a little bit high. He can’t risk taking his phone with him and having it be found.

 

    But he can text him before, or after, for that reminder to be careful and to stay clean. Can text him at night from the safety of the yacht to wish him sweet dreams.

 

    He doesn’t text him when the nightmares wake him-- which they do, most nights. Too early for Crosby. He texts when he thinks it’s reasonable-- about the time Crosby usually rises. And by then it’s too late to mention the nightmare that had woken him, so he never does.

 

    He says ‘tell me something’, and Crosby will, and he’ll have one thing to think about that isn’t his rough nights and paranoid days. The first time, Crosby just told him what he was doing, and that was fine, because it meant he could picture it. Picture him in the grey lounge pants he usually comes to breakfast in when they’re both at the house, those and a rumpled vee neck tee he never wears as anything other than pajamas. It’s still winter, even if that doesn’t mean a lot in LA-- winter means Crosby wears his bathrobe in the mornings, so he can picture that, and the way his hair sticks up differently in the morning, not in that deliberate way of a gelled and styled Crosby. The way he looks sleepy and grumpy and cute before he gets a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal… He pictures an apartment, not like his own that he hates. Pictures Crosby going about his morning and that propels him through his own. He imagines it until it feels like a real place, or at least a movie place. Even now that Crosby tells him weird bits of trivia or things he learned in his classes, Manfred pictures them there.

 

INT., DAY, APARTMENT BATHROOM- Medium shot of a foggy bathroom mirror. Crosby’s hand wipes away some of the steam in a broad arc to reveal his reflection, there in a towel, hair wet.. A hand comes to rest on his chest from behind and he smiles. Cut to Crosby and Manfred standing at the sink, camera in place of the mirror now so the audience can see what had been obscured. Manfred, hair dry, leaning around, his arms around Crosby. The very edge of Crosby’s towel visible over the edge of the sink, but it’s low on his hips, showing off that vee, the one you sometimes see when he’s in his swim trunks, even though he always keeps those a little too hiked up. Trail of hair coming down from his navel visible too.

 

MANFRED

Good morning.

 

CROSBY

It could get nicer.

 

Cut to a wide angle, catching them in profile, Crosby standing at the sink and Manfred-- dressed in boxers-- wrapped around him from behind. One set of wet footprints on the bath mat. Spider plant on the sill of the high narrow window over the shower. One towel still hanging up, dry. Manfred’s hands slid to Crosby’s hips. Fade out as his fingers slip under the towel.

 

INT., DAY, APARTMENT BEDROOM- Fade in, Medium shot from above, Crosby lying on his back in the center of the bed, Manfred tucked against his side. They don’t have anywhere to be for the rest of the day.

 

    He plays that one for himself a lot. Sometimes they share the shower, sometimes they have breakfast, sometimes he’s watching TV at the Wolf King’s house and he imagines he’s watching with Crosby, but in a living room far away. One that’s just theirs.

 

    And every morning, when he still can’t completely banish the nightmares, he asks Crosby to tell him something new.

 

\---

 

86- The Wolf King

 

    He’s concerned, a little concerned.

 

    So Crosby just wants a friend, or just wants to be able to be friendly with someone his age who he’s sharing a house with, that’s not implausible. He’s got his boyfriend at school, he’d gotten weird about Acapulco at the end of the break, and Acapulco…

 

    Acapulco feels something about Crosby. That’s a problem. Maybe it had always been Acapulco’s idea, and Crosby had gone along with it because he’d have gone along with anyone at that point. He’d spent the year assuming Crosby had been the driving force and Acapulco the one who had gone with the flow, but now he keeps going back to his most recent information.

 

    It’s still a problem for Crosby to be too attached, but… suppose it had always been Acapulco? Acapulco chasing Crosby around, Crosby mostly oblivious. Crosby thinking maybe it was no big deal to accept a blowjob from a sort-of friend-- before this boyfriend, that had been about what he did, a thing the Wolf King knows a little too much about. More than he’d needed to know, he’d just needed to be sure that Acapulco wasn’t contacting him, that their betrayal hadn’t gone that deep, and to know if he talked about him to his friends.

 

    And he didn’t. He sighed about Freddie a bit to a couple friends. One of whom he exchanged photos with, which the Wolf King had not intended to see, and had done his best to forget. But no Acapulco.

 

    It’s been Acapulco who’s been fantasizing about Crosby all along. From the start? If he wanted both, well, that wasn’t okay, he didn’t get to do that. Didn’t get to come into a man’s house and seduce his son, when he was supposed to be his. And why, why Crosby? Attention while Daddy was working? Influence, power he thought he might be able to get out of playing them both? If it was attention, he could forgive him as long as he believed Acapulco could learn his lesson and stop doing it. If it was only attention, he could understand. If he thought he could play the Wolf King, if he thought he could get more than the fucking bounty he was granted by going after the son as well as the father, well… if it was that, he should probably end the ride now and show him what being greedy gets him.

 

    But what if it was neither?

 

    Forty-five’s not old. Maybe it looks that way from twenty-four. On the Wolf King, forty-five is pretty damn good, he doesn’t think he needs any false modesty about it. He keeps himself in good shape, his stamina is certainly nothing to sneeze at, he does not disappoint in any arena, and certainly not in the bedroom.

 

    When he thinks of it like that, there’s always an echo of that initial anger. The thought that it was youth, as a driving factor. If he cared enough about Acapulco’s affections, he could give him more attention, could give him more of an ear, favor him with more little gifts… he could change the game back to his favor if attention or power were the motivators. But if it was youth? Well, there’s nothing he can do about that. And he doesn’t care enough about Acapulco to give in and please him just to keep him, but damned if he doesn’t care about keeping that boy’s hands off of his son.

 

    He doesn’t want to spend his time on thinking about this problem, but Acapulco is still around, is still worth the occasional indulgence in exchange for a guaranteed good time, and if he cut him loose, suppose he turned around and went after Crosby? A boy like that could ruin Crosby’s future.

 

    Crosby is… soft, still. Even with this new defiance he’d displayed this past winter break, he’s too soft to usurp his father outright, he would never think of such a thing. But would Acapulco? Oh, he’s not smart enough, not smart enough to win if he thought he could manipulate Crosby into taking power. Crosby’s not ready, it would be a disaster if he could goad him into trying… but does he want that? Does he know he can only ever have so much from the Wolf King? Does he think he can get his hooks in a younger man and put himself in a better position? How would he even hope to…

 

    Of course. If sex didn’t work, if Crosby viewed it as a bit of meaningless fun with a maybe-friend, what would his next recourse be? Once he understood Crosby’s softness, he could worm his way into his sympathies, and make Crosby feel like the big man by enlisting him as a protector. And if that was ever his plan, the Wolf King played right into it. And he hadn’t taught his son the valuable lesson he’d intended, he’d pushed him right into a trap.

 

    No. He doesn’t have proof of any of this. He’s giving Acapulco too much credit, perhaps. And yet… he just doesn’t like the idea of that boy having plans. He doesn’t want him sniffing around Crosby for any reason, but especially not if he plans on using him, twisting him against his father, and angling to put him in a position he can’t handle, all because he’s soft, all because he has sympathies that can be played on.

 

    If he thinks about it logically, if he doesn’t ascribe mental abilities to Acapulco that the boy seems to lack, well… it just seems like he wants both because he’s greedy, oversexed, and desperate for attention. It’s not okay, he’s not allowed this, but he’s not trying to replace the Wolf King. If he truly thought he was trying to do that...

 

\---

 

87- Crosby

 

    His work is progressing, on The Zealot. He’d selected a pose from his pages of thumbnails. He works on it in his room when he has good light, because when he works on it out in the living room, Johnny gives him this look sometimes, and he can’t deal with that look. When he’s in the zone, he’s so far past everything and he can work. Johnny’s concern pulls him too much back into the real world.

 

    He knows which nights Freddie stays at the house based on whether or not he gets a text in the morning. He starts to feel anxious, waiting on the texts to come, just because they mean Freddie is away from his dad, safe. Because when he doesn’t get them, he’s forced to think about them together, and even if Freddie’s not in danger, he doesn’t like those thoughts. He doesn’t like to picture his dad’s hands on Freddie anywhere, in any capacity, doesn’t want the half-memory-half-nightmare visions of Freddie in his lap, possessive hand keeping him there. Favored with kisses, and too often with one eye on Crosby to gauge his reaction.

 

    When he’s not there, Freddie is probably safe. But Crosby still worries, when he doesn’t get a text at breakfast.

 

    He’s working on The Zealot, when his phone buzzes with a message from the real thing. Not the early morning text his mood for the day too often hinges on, but still.

 

    _babe come over_

 

_I can’t._

 

_ur dad’s not home_

 

    Crosby stares, breaking out in a cold sweat. _FREDDIE_

 

_what_

 

_Tell me you didn’t take your burner phone to the house_

 

_oh sorry j/k j/k I’m on the yacht fuck sorry now we gotta start over_

 

    Crosby does, deleting the last string of messages and sending a new one. It’s annoying, especially when Freddie forgets and mentions something, because he can keep a log of everything they’ve said and it doesn’t matter, but Crosby can’t have any references to their shared life where his dad might read it.

 

    _Not funny, dude, I thought you were actually going to get caught texting me_

 

_i am sorry_

_meet me though?_

 

_I have a quiz on macroeconomics in twenty I can’t get down to Long Beach_

 

_the mall after your quiz? i’ll come up and meet you_

 

    Crosby sits down, looking at his phone a long moment. He could blow off the rest of his day after that… they could meet up. They could go anywhere after, he could even take Freddie home…

 

    _please? i’ll buy you a fuckin frozen yogurt we can do whatever you want_

_i miss you_

 

_Yeah, I’ll text you when I’m out. You buy me that frozen yogurt and I’ll take you to a movie._ He texts back.

 

    It’s dangerously like a date. Maybe exactly like a date.

 

    He makes sure no one’s tailing him after he gets out of his class, and he texts Freddie anyway.


	30. It's Better in the Matinee

87- Crosby

 

    They wind up seeing the movie first, just because of how the showtimes work out. It’s forgettable, in Crosby’s opinion-- he almost spends more time turned towards Freddie, trying to make out his face in the dark. He’s riveted the entire time.

 

    “So was that movie actually good?” Crosby asks, as the credits roll and people stream out around them.

 

    “Oh, fuck no. Not from a writing standpoint. Or an acting standpoint. But the cinematography was beautiful.”

 

    “Okay good, because I literally couldn’t follow any of that.” He laughs. “You seemed to be into it.”

 

    “It’s shit and people are gonna get fake deep over it because it’s beautiful enough no one’s gonna want to just say it’s shit. They’re gonna want to look for some creative reason it all sucked so hard. And the reason is, like, not everyone can be an auteur, and directing is more than framing a pretty picture, it’s also telling your fucking warm props what to do in a scene. But the lighting and the camera angles all came together… just real fucking good, like… you could pull a still from almost any scene and hang it on a fuckin’ wall but that doesn’t make a good movie.”

 

    Crosby smiles, leaning in so that their arms press together on the armrest between them. “Sometime we should watch a good movie, then. I mean-- we could do this again. If we were careful… we could.”

 

    “Yeah.” Freddie smiles over at him, briefly, before looking back up at the credits. They stay there in the half-dark until the credits finish and the lights come the rest of the way up.

 

    They walk close enough for their arms to brush now and then, as they make their way slowly from the movie theater to the food court, pausing at the occasional window-- or for the occasional snide remark from Freddie about something or other.

 

    “Hey, I actually like that shirt.” Crosby laughs, after one particularly vicious jab. He doesn’t, exactly-- but he likes the store, he likes other vaguely similar shirts.

 

    “Really? Well, I mean, you’ve got the body to pull it off, but like. That’s your idea of fashion?”

 

    “I don’t think you need a specific body to pull off like… a normal shirt.”

 

    “It’s a muscle tank, you need muscles for it. Like, shoulders and biceps and shit, otherwise you’re just some asshole who hates sleeves. It’s awful, by the way, is that a… fuckin’ appliqued-on football?”

 

    “Maybe I like football.”

 

    “You don’t.” Freddie elbows him, stifling a _giggle_.

 

    “I used to play football.”

 

    “Yeah, I know. But did you like it?”

 

    He shakes his head. “Wasn’t my favorite. I mean it was fun sometimes. Like I’d say yes if a group of guys just wanted to throw together a game or… But I wouldn’t watch other people play.”

 

    “Do you even actually like that shirt?”

 

    “No. But this is where I bought those shorts you like.”

 

    Freddie licks his lips, glances quickly between Crosby and the store window. “How do you know which shorts I like?”

 

    “I know whenever you can’t stop making fun of something I’m wearing it means you like it.” He laughs. “And you act like you _hate_ those shorts.”

 

    “Picked up on that, huh?” He looks away again, grinning. “You dress up for me sometimes?”

 

    “Sometimes. Maybe.”

 

    “It’s so weird to me still. I mean, you just shop for your clothes at the mall like… like normal people.”

 

    “Where am I supposed to go? I think if there was some special ‘so daddy’s a mob boss’ outlet I’d be the first to know about it, dude.” He snorts, steering Freddie from the window and on towards their destination with a gentle touch of the elbow.

 

    “I mean you could be wearing designer everything. And you shop at the mall with regular people, for like…”

 

    “Yeah, I’m in college. It’s not like you or my dad, making deals and dressing for the job and all that, like… I’d look like such a pretentious new money douche if I was wearing Gucci everything to fucking… econ classes. I dress like every other college guy whose parents have money, that’s the point. I just want to look normal. Normal for my world’s not the same as normal for your world right now. But I mean… we’ll be in the same world when I’m done with school.”

 

    Freddie’s smile dims. “Yeah. I guess we will. Hey-- I’m buying you frozen yogurt, right? Let’s go do that.”

 

\---

 

88- Manfred

 

    He doesn’t like the idea of Crosby in his world. It’s not like he hasn’t always known it would happen, his nice boy heading for a life of crime. He was born to it. It’s not like Manfred’s own crash landing, Crosby was always going to be a made man.

 

    Being in the same world won’t help them, though. The Wolf King isn’t going to send Crosby to broker deals with him. He would still be keeping them apart, he’s been… weird about it, since the break. Since…

 

    Manfred doesn’t like to think about it. When he remembers that morning, he sees sharpness behind the smiles, but he knows there hadn’t been. There hadn’t been anything but sweetness, the charm the Wolf King could turn on like that. He’d been too off-balance to keep track of how much he was doing, until it was too late. He’d been happy to do a couple more lines alone when the Wolf King left him, promising a surprise. Promising him a nice boy.

 

    Fuck, now even that… Now he can’t even call Crosby that, without thinking about that night, without thinking about the Wolf King and the Artemis and how he could have died, how Crosby could have been there watching.

 

    He’s glad Crosby got him there, he’s glad he didn’t die, but it would have been better to croak out there alone and have the Wolf King find him later than to have Crosby have to see it happen, if he hadn’t been clear-headed, if he hadn’t been able to act, if he hadn’t known where to go.

 

    He maybe could have gone anywhere, but he’d known about the Artemis.

 

    Crosby shouldn’t have to get mixed up in this world, but he was always going to. And ever since that day, maybe longer but he hadn’t seen it, the Wolf King had been weird. Prying a lot more. Digging in, watching close…

 

    And Crosby still tells him he should leave, and maybe Crosby is right, but it isn’t so easy. And Crosby knows it’s not so easy, and at least whatever they’re in, they’re in together.

 

    At least he gets to buy him frozen yogurt, and they talk over the movie. And it’s… He doesn’t know. It’s good, and it hurts.

 

    “What are we?” He asks. He doesn’t mean to, he knows he shouldn’t have. As soon as he says it he knows it was wrong. He broke whatever it is they have, the agreement, their rules, the veneer of safety, but it’s been broken and put back together so many times…

 

    “We’re friends.” Crosby bites his lip. “We-- I mean, that’s all we can be, isn’t it?”

 

    “No, yeah, right. I know. I don’t-- I didn’t mean-- But like… Friends, that’s--”

 

    “Friends is good.” He says, his foot nudging at Manfred’s just briefly. “Isn’t it?”

 

    “Yeah. I don’t, uh… I was never, like, a ‘friends’ guy.”

 

    “Freddie…”

 

    “I don’t mean you. I mean we’ve-- we’ve been friends a long time now, like, in our own way. I just mean other people, people don’t like me, it’s… I mean, but who cares? But you and me, we… I mean yeah, that’s good, friends is good. Guess that means you’ve been my best friend since, what, like… maybe when you came back for summer break, that first year? Like, we started talking about shit then.”

 

    He makes the mistake of meeting Crosby’s eyes. He doesn’t know if he likes what he sees, it’s too much. And if they were free to be something other than friends, maybe he could just accept that, but here, now, frozen yogurt melting on his spoon, it’s just way too much.

 

    “Freddie…” Crosby sighs.

 

    “So, I mean, am I your best friend?”

 

    “You’re… you’re something different. I mean-- we can only be friends. But you-- you know you’re… You know what you are to me.”

 

    “Yeah. So, like… just as friends, can I say I’d kill a guy for you?”

   

    Crosby laughs, ducking his head. “Not ‘just’. You’re not a ‘just’, you’re a _friend_. Yeah, you can say that. And as friends, so would I.”

 

    “No. No, I wouldn’t let you do that.” He shakes his head, and he sees the change in how Crosby looks at him, as it goes from hyperbole to solid fact in his mind.

 

    “If I ever had to--”

 

    “We both know if you ever had to, why you-- why I couldn’t let you.”

 

    “Fuck.” Crosby sighs. “Of all the things to talk about at the fucking mall…”

 

    “Sorry.”

 

    “No, no… don’t be. Just… next time you offer to kill a man for me, maybe save it for after the frozen yogurt.” He cracks a little smile. Not entirely free of… well, a dozen complicated other things, but still, a smile.

 

    “Oh, sure. Sure, if you want to be like that.”

 

\---

 

89- The Wolf King

 

    Acapulco’s been sober. Not an unprecedented length of time, just from late December to early February. He’d gone longer in the summer.

 

    This time there’s no Crosby, and he has managed to keep them apart, to make sure there would be no surprise weekend overlap. This time, though, Acapulco has reasons to want to get clean that don’t involve Crosby.

 

    He doesn’t push, this time. There are other ways of controlling him-- indeed, he seems as eager to be controlled without the coke as he ever was with. He plays his role, and sometimes the Wolf King could believe him. Not always.

 

    He’s stopped asking for gentle. He’s learned to flinch from sweet. But that’s fine. They both enjoy what they’re left with.

 

    “Who do you think about?” He asks, when Acapulco is flopped out in the center of the bed, sweaty and come-smeared and strung out on sex alone. He trails fingertips over his skin, skirting the mess. Not the kind of sweet petting he shies away from, just touch. Idle and there.

 

    “You.” Acapulco blinks up at him. Dizzy and slow enough in the aftermath that this might be one of those times to believe him, if he didn’t know better, didn’t know about all his fantasies, his ‘nice boy’.

 

    “Who else?”

 

    “Just you… Mostly you.”

 

    “Who else?” His hand closes around Acapulco’s hip.

 

    “Guys, I guess. Sometimes.”

 

    “And you’ve, uh, learned your little lesson? About getting ideas, about my, my son?”

 

    He nods. “Didn’t mean anything. Didn’t… didn’t think about fucking him, just… company.”

 

    That’s almost as bad… company? What does he want Crosby’s company for? What game is he playing?

 

    “Well, I wish I could believe you, honey, but I… I know what you’re like, see? Oh, and I know, I know. You just can’t help yourself. But you’ll help yourself-- you’ll _control_ yourself-- when it comes to my boy, won’t you?”

 

    “Yes, Daddy.”

 

    He sighs, shaking his head. “Not the time. You know what, let me give you some free advice-- you might want to start controlling yourself a little more often. You might want to start acting like a fucking man, once in a while, if you want to stay ahead in the game. Or people are just going to keep taking advantage of you-- and I don’t just mean that pretty mouth, honey, I mean with cold, hard cash.”

 

    There’s a satisfying flash of hurt. Good, let him hurt, fantasizing about a man’s son.

 

    “Everyone knows about you, how’s that any different?” Acapulco sits up, pulling away.

 

    “Because I fuck boys like you who just want to please me, and I keep my bedroom and my business separate. Because I have earned everyone knowing about me, because I have lived a long, pardon me, but a long fucking time, sweetheart, with a big fucking secret. I fought my way to the top so that if I wanted to fuck a pretty boy once in a while, no one would have anything to say about it. I made myself the deadliest man in LA just so that I could rub it in anyone’s face I wanted, but I don’t do that. I have a modicum of, of class about my sex life. Do you know who you dealt with last week?”

 

    “I don’t ask people’s business, I just sell--”

 

    “You need to _know_ people’s business, without asking. You need to know people’s business when the people you sell to happen to be fucking Vincent Walters. Because that’s a man who’d like to kill, uh, yours truly. And you dealing with him, that damages our relationship. And I know who Vincent Walters deals with because I pay people to hear things about him, and I hear… I hear he deals with you. I hear _he_ claims you sweetened the deal on those rifles you sold him, and honey, he’s been trying to move in on my territory for a long time, and you’re the first time he’s been successful.”

 

    The fear, that’s more satisfying than the hurt.

 

    “You never said we were exclusive…”

 

    “We’re not. But how about we add my mortal enemies to the list of people you don’t get to fuck. Right there after my _son_. And you start thinking about image, because right now, yours reflects on me. And people can know about me, but I maintain my image carefully.”

 

    He leaves the bed, grabbing his pants.

 

    He’d put in his dues. He’d made his position and his reputation immaculate… he was supposed to be able to enjoy that freedom, he was robbed of that. But he will not have Acapulco’s behavior spoiling what he has built.


	31. My Heavy Heart is Sinking and I Won't Watch You Leave

90- The Wolf King

 

    He remembers their first… how they had sat at separate tables, because there was a Mrs. Franklin then, who had not wanted to go out to dinner at all if they couldn’t go alone, but he’d insisted. ‘It’s Valentine’s Day, and I want to take the love of my life and the mother of my child out to dinner’-- oh, and she hadn’t had him yet, they hadn’t lost him yet. And he had never wanted children, but he’d needed children, and maybe he had been willing to think it wouldn’t be so bad… that there would be other positives to having a son.

 

    Well. No sense thinking about that.

 

    He had not clarified that the love of his life and the mother of his child were two different people. He had arranged flowers and he had bought her something nice, he doesn’t remember what. He remembers the poolhouse, in the middle of the day. He remembers spilling champagne in bed, and the cufflinks he’d given Tommy, worn later that night when Tommy had sat at the next table over. He remembers the laughter and the feel of warm, callused hands…

 

    He remembers stealing a kiss in the hallway that night, and it was all they could steal, because there was a Mrs. Franklin then, and he owed her that portion of his time. For what she’d done for him, he owed her that.

 

    Their first after the divorce, though. The ring-- big, square, heavy, looking like an affectation rather than a wedding band, he’s worn it since. It’s changed hands, been on a chain around his neck, sat heavy in a concealed pocket every once in a while… but he’s worn it since.

 

    Their first after the divorce, with Crosby at his mother’s, in his bedroom, in their own bedroom. No more poolhouse-- not out of necessity, but sometimes for the view or for old times’ sake, or for added privacy. Sometimes, after all, a man wanted to make a little more noise than having a small child sleeping down the hall would allow for.

 

Their first after the divorce, in their own bed, where once again they’d spilled champagne everywhere. Laughed. Wrestled a little for the joy of it, oh, there was joy in it… he’d reveled in knowing just how strong Tommy was. In getting to feel it for himself, while knowing straight down to the bone that that strength was there to keep him safe. And they had been a good match, there were times when either of them might have won if it had ever been about winning. He likes to think they both won.

 

They could have had twenty-five of these. Twenty-five and counting. They could have had a lifetime, they were so young, and still so young when it was all taken away. They never got their golden years.

 

He goes down to the lookout again. He should have been going, all these years. It makes the pain sharper, he’d known that before New Year’s. But a lot of things can make the pain sharper. And it’s his pain.

 

He settles into his spot, bottle of champagne in hand. Takes a swig from the bottle, lets a little spill. Watches the sun set over the ocean and waits for the stars, their stars.

 

\---

 

91- Freddie

 

    He’d texted about getting together on Saturday. They’d very firmly avoided talking about what Saturday was. Just Saturday. No different from going to a movie or just hanging out to talk, like they had done a couple times. They could ignore the date. They could pretend to.

 

    He’d made the invitation, Crosby had said it would have to be casual. He’d come over with dinner and they could hang out for a while, enjoy being out on the water. Talk.

 

    Crosby still rushes to hug him the moment they see each other. That’s all that matters. Even with a drink carrier in one hand and their dinner in the other, he gets his arms sort-of around him the moment he’s able to, before passing off the drinks and following him up to the yacht.

 

    They had agreed it had to be casual, that it was just to see each other and talk. Crosby still had them hold the onions when he got their burgers. That had to mean something.

 

    He takes them out a ways, just so that they’ll be alone, so they can sit out on the deck, away from any other boats, from any prying eyes. If anyone were to spot them… Maybe they shouldn’t do this, when the Wolf King has the power to spy on either of them if he decides to, but they get so little as it is. How could he give up what they do have?

 

    He swings his legs over Crosby’s lap while they eat, radio on soft from the cabin, and he begs to hear all about Crosby’s week. His own hasn’t been interesting… one deal, one visit to the Wolf King, one he’d slunk home from without asking if he was wanted for a longer stay… nothing he wants to tell Crosby about. He wants to hear about how college is. What life is like away from everything he deals with… what life is like when it’s normal, for as long as Crosby can have normal. Stories about all of his friends, his classes, his apartment… And Crosby obliges, between bites, though he asks for stories in return.

 

    He tells the nicest parts of his week. That he’d finished reading the book Crosby had given him, that he’d seen a whale-- winter is the time for it. Somehow it had been the first he’d seen since he’d gotten the yacht. That he’d cooked for himself one night. Which is stupid, a stupid thing to brag about, but Crosby smiles and squeezes his leg gently.

 

    “I’ve seen dolphins a lot. I’ve never seen a whale. Maybe a pilot whale, from the pier, where you can’t tell the difference so much, but not a big one.” Crosby smiles. “We should go out sometime and look, I guess we’ve got until April. We could… we could just… cruise around on the weekends. ‘Til we see some.”

 

    “Yeah. We could. Any weekend you want. Every weekend. You know… you know your dad doesn’t want me around on weekends right now-- in case that’s when you decide to show up? I don’t know what he really thinks right now… it’s-- You know what it’s like. Like… You know what he’s like.”

 

    “Yeah. But if he doesn’t want you on the weekends, then I guess that means I get you.” Crosby shrugs, licks his lips. “I mean-- So we can do shit together. Hang out and…”

 

    “Right. Look for whales and shit.” He swallows.

 

    “Freddie…”

 

    “Cros?”

 

    “Tonight… I mean… You know…”

 

    “I didn’t ask you over to whale-watch?”

 

    “And I didn’t come over to.”

 

    “You gonna tell me how we can’t?”

 

    “No.” Crosby reaches for him, takes his hand. “Not tonight. Tonight… I’m tired of pretending. We never get to say anything real, we never get to touch, even when we’re alone we… we have all these fucking rules in place and I… Tonight, let’s not. For one night. I don’t care if it makes it harder, I don’t care. Do you?”

 

    He shakes his head. They rise, together, they head in. Crosby’s hands move to frame his face and they stop him in place before he can lean up to be kissed.

 

    “Freddie…” He whispers. “I love you. And if we just get tonight and if we can never do this again, if we can never say it again, I love you… and I can’t not say it anymore. Even if it-- I mean, if we can’t-- I have to say it tonight, at least, I love you.”

 

    “Why? I mean, I know-- I mean-- Fuck-- I mean, I love you. Of course I love you.” He grabs onto Crosby’s wrists, squeezes tight, holds him there. “So fucking much, I love you.”

 

    “Why?” Crosby rests their foreheads together. “Because… Because you know everything. Because you look at me like I’m somebody. Because no one’s ever needed me before. Why not? You’re not the worst guy I could fall for. You said as much once.”

 

    “I guess I’m not. And… yeah. And you know, and… and you treat me like I’m-- I mean maybe you don’t need me, but you-- you look at me like I’m somebody, too. I love you. All my life I’ve been a fuckup and you look at me like I’m a somebody.”

 

    “You’re good at this. You’re good at more than just this. You’re not-- It’s not your fault nobody believed in you before.”

 

    “Yours, either. Cros… I see you. You’re so smart and you work so hard and I see you. And I mean, and fuck anybody who doesn’t! You know?”

 

    And he can feel the threat of tears, it always happens when he’s frustrated-- not angry, if he could just be angry he wouldn’t cry, it’s the _frustration_ , and it’s knowing they’re in the same boat, and maybe he deserves it, but Crosby doesn’t… But maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he should have gotten the kind of love and support he thinks Crosby should have had. Some days he barely thinks he ought to have gotten the kind of support Crosby does have. He’s used to being worthless beyond what he might do for someone. He’s used to whatever it is people don’t like about him, even if he can’t name it. There are things he’s always felt he deserved to have, and love was never one of them.

 

    Crosby loves him. He doesn’t think he quite deserves that, but damned if he doesn’t want it. Love. The drawings hanging in his apartment that he can’t sleep under, and the one by his bed here that he makes the last thing he sees most nights, and the weathered plastic dinosaur, love. Pancakes and marshmallows and cooking lessons and lips pressed to the top of his head, love. Whispered secrets and shared damages and pre-dawn soaks in the hot tub and holding him all day away from the world when he was at his worst, _love_.

 

    “I know.” Crosby whispers, and he kisses him again, both cheeks, his forehead, his lips. “I know, I know, Freddie… Freddie, I know.”

 

    And he does, he’s the only one who does. Crosby lays him down in the center of his bed, Crosby undoes every shirt button, shushing him gently and taking his hands when he tries to help speed things up.

 

    “Let me?” He asks-- _asks_ , over just this, and the idea of refusing Crosby anything is unthinkable, but no one has ever treated him like this before. There are guys he’s hooked up with when the Wolf King hasn’t had him over a while, who don’t bother with even getting undressed completely. And there’s the Wolf King, the bulk of his lifetime of sexual experience, these past few years, with whom there’s barely anything to take off, or who he might on occasion strip for as a show.

 

    Crosby unwraps him like he’s a fucking gift, and he doesn’t know what to do with how that makes him feel. Crosby spreads his unbuttoned shirt open and runs careful fingertips over his skin as if he hasn’t seen him in less so many times, as if he’s new. As if he’s special. And his lips follow, and he peels the shirt away, his hands at Freddie’s sides, spread wide, just holding him together. Just holding him. Soft kisses covering all the ground he can, until he has him trembling.

 

    “I love you.” Crosby whispers again, words smeared against skin.

 

    He winds his fingers through Crosby’s hair, and it’s almost too short to get a grip on even at its longest, but he holds on as best he can without just yanking at it. “I love you.”

 

    Crosby gets his pants off-- looks up, startled, at the velvet panties underneath.

 

    “Were you planning on showing me these?” He asks, licking his lips, dark eyes fixed on Freddie’s. “Kind of thought-- I don’t know. Like maybe when you were off on your own you were a boxers guy or…”

 

    “Sometimes. Just wear whatever’s clean and on hand when I’m wearing clothes. Maybe I wore these for you a little.”

 

    Crosby’s hand rests over the front, cupped a little. Warm, firm, his hips buck up against that hand, he can feel himself filling out, responding to the touch. And he looks everywhere, his eyes flickering between making full eye contact and checking out his body, focusing briefly on the effect he has before looking up to meet Freddie’s eyes once more.

 

    “Well… nice finally getting to touch.” Crosby smiles. Squeezes just gently, too gently, before his thumb traces along the outline of Freddie’s swelling cock. “You know you could wear anything for me, though. And I’d still-- I mean-- oh, Freddie, you… you really are…”

 

    He kisses him, through the fabric, he can hardly stand it. Then he’s straddling Freddie’s thighs as he strips slowly out of his own shirt, and Freddie reaches for his jeans, fights the instinct to rush. Instead, he keeps his eyes on Crosby’s as he eases the button open, the zipper down.

 

    “Missed this.” He sighs, dipping two fingers under the waistband of Crosby’s briefs. Black, riding low on his hips… nice. “I never did get to finish-- But at least, I mean… Everything that’s happened, and how bad it got, I never regretted starting. Being with you, fuck, it was… It felt…”

 

    “It felt real.” Crosby nods, his voice is just a whisper. “You felt real.”

 

    “Only you… only us, it’s like-- everything else is just…”

 

    “There.”

 

    “Yeah.”

 

    Crosby shifts around to let him push the jeans and briefs down, to get rid of them entirely, and he’s seen most of Crosby before, between the pool and the blowjob he’d given, but to have him naked, to have it be for him, to have it be the two of them together… like _this_. He settles back over Freddie with a grin, grinding against him, both of them half-hard, and it’s just enough to tease before he rolls over onto his back.

 

    “Hey-- I was enjoying that!”

   

    “Yeah? Come and get me.” Crosby laughs, and so he does, and he lets Crosby peel away those velvet panties entirely, as he kisses him. Hands everywhere, and both of them smiling too hard half the time for him to kiss Crosby as deeply as he wants to.

 

    “You’re really hot…” He says, burying the words in the crook of Crosby’s neck. “I mean, like… fuck, you’ve got a fantastic body. I just… All the times I’ve thought of you… how much I wanted to touch you. Have you touch me. You wanna know the best… the best fucking sex dream I’ve had? And I woke up before it even got good, and it’s still the best, and it was you stepping out of the shower and me… me just down on the floor, all I even got to do was lick the water off your abs, and shit, man, I woke up… so fucking ready for it, you know?”

 

    “I don’t know if that counts as a sex dream.” Crosby snorts.

 

    “Well I woke up hard, didn’t I? Because I was dreaming about you, all… naked and wet. And I had my mouth on you. It counts.”

 

    “Yeah, okay… I dream about you, too, sometimes.”  He trails his fingers up and down Freddie’s spine, other hand in his hair, and he hates having anyone else pull at it now, but Crosby… He just melts, when it’s Crosby. “I dreamed there was this party… college guys, like… music thumping and people packed into a drained swimming pool to dance, like… I dunno, it was weird. And then you were there and I didn’t know how you were there, didn’t care. We found each other in the middle of all these guys, like, shoulder to shoulder dancing. We were just making out and grinding on each other, I also woke up before things got very far. But I guess it counts.”

 

    “Wish every dream I had was about you. They’re the only good ones I ever remember.” He sighs, and nips at Crosby’s throat. Just a little.

 

    “Yeah.” The hand in his hair tightens, Crosby’s breath catches. He can feel a hard swallow under his lips, under his tongue. “Yeah… I wish… _oh_ , I wish…”

 

    Crosby shifts, spreading his legs wider for Freddie to settle between.

 

    “You wish what?” He latches on to leave a hickey. He might as well, Crosby’s supposed to be spending the night with his college boyfriend, if he did drop by the house to do laundry or anything… why wouldn’t he have a couple marks, day after Valentine’s Day?

 

    “I wish we could… I mean-- I’ve only ever, um… I’ve only ever traded blowjobs before… I don’t-- I don’t want this to be like the time before, when we-- I don’t want to be thinking about that, when we’re finally just alone and it’s safe, we’re as safe as we’ll ever be, and I just wish…”

 

    “We can fuck. If that’s what you want.” He lifts his head, meeting Crosby’s eyes. “I’ve got lube, um… stuff for using with toys and, yeah. We can.”

 

    “We can?”

 

    “Yeah. We can do anything you want. Like, anything anything, I just-- I want it to be perfect for you. You’ve never? With any of your college boys?”

 

    “You have… some ideas about what college is like.” Crosby chuckles weakly. “Just blowjobs. And mostly just with one boy. A couple, um, a couple others. But like…”

 

    “Yeah. No, it’s cool, that’s cool, I-- I get to be your first for something.” He traces a looping line across Crosby’s chest. “I wish you could be mine. But I mean… No, it’s okay, I mean, it’s good I know what we’re doing, right? I’ll show you what to do. Or, I mean, I can do the prep stuff, if you’re nervous about it, like, I know what I’m doing with it, it’s really easy when you’re used to it.”

 

    “Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. That’s… I just want you in me.”

 

    He blinks. Well… to be fair, Crosby had settled under him, practically had his legs wrapped around Freddie already, but still, he hadn’t expected…

 

    “Me in you? Not, uh, not the other way around?”

 

    Crosby shakes his head, eyes wide, and bites his lip.

 

    “I guess you, um… No, yeah, I guess you get to be my first for something, that’s… What, uh, like… what made you think, me in you?”

 

    “I just want to, really. I’ve just always… I mean, not always you, but like… dude, I’ve known since I was like, fifteen, that I was theoretically into somebody fucking me.”

 

    “So why haven’t you done it? With your college boys?”

 

    “Because they’re not boyfriends. Just… friends and hookups and… I mean and we’re friends and we… But you’re still you. And you mean something to me that’s different from what… what anyone else means. I mean…”

 

    He nods, leaning up to kiss Crosby when he trails off into silence.

 

    “I might be shit at this.” He says.

 

    “That’s okay. You can just give me a hand, like… I don’t expect my first time to be magical, dude.”

 

    “I want it to be magical, I want-- Shit, if this is all we get, I want it to be magical!”

 

    “Well… it’s Valentine’s Day and we’re on a boat… in love. Even if the sex isn’t perfect, maybe that’s magical enough. I just… I want to be with you tonight. I don’t want to worry-- for once, I just want to be with you and not worry.”

 

    He swallows, nodding. For once… he can do that for him.

 

\---

 

92- Crosby

 

    He’s beautiful. Haloed by the light over the bed, his lips full, his eyes… His _eyes_ , Crosby can hardly breathe, his eyes… And he had been beautiful, on his back, and it had felt incredible just making out, talking, grinding together, feeling the soft pile of the velvet against his own cock, and Freddie growing hotter and harder on the other side.

 

    He’d been beautiful then, but now… Crosby is transfixed. And his face is so hot, but Freddie just nods and touches him gently. Freddie might be surprised by the request but he doesn’t ask him to change it. He doesn’t ask him to be his father.

 

    “Crosby…” Freddie whispers, and everything else fades away, everything else is meaningless, in the face of Freddie’s focus, his eyes. The warm hazel radiating out into cool sea green, captivating. And the touch of his hand, he has such beautiful hands. Square and sturdy, solid hands, the kind of hands you could feel safe in. He feels safe in them. Out here, where Freddie isn’t a disaster, isn’t strung out and nearly naked, isn’t beholden to the monster that holds them both captive. Out here, where he’s a success, where he’s got it together, where he has a fucking yacht and people go to him when they need to make a deal.

 

    He loves that boy who needs him, but that doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate the man who… who might still need him, if not in all the same ways. Who wants him.

 

    “Freddie.” He sighs.

 

    “Relax for me…” Freddie kisses him, kisses his way from Crosby’s mouth down his throat, and he can’t help moaning when Freddie’s lips brush past the mark he’d left. “Relax… I-- I’ll take care of you this time. Fuck, you deserve that, you’ve taken care of me… Let me take care of you, I’ll be so good to you… oh, baby, let me take care of you...”

 

    And he does relax, he doesn’t even have to work to do it. Freddie offers to take care of him and he’s there.

 

    “You’ll take care of me.” He nods, opening his legs further.

 

    “Breathe.” Freddie laughs, kissing his way lower still, along Crosby’s chest. He reaches for him, gently guiding him up, meeting his eyes again. “You okay?”

 

    “I’m okay. Just wanted to look at you.”

 

    Freddie grins. “Okay. You feel relaxed?”

 

    He nods.

 

    “Good. I promise… I promise it’s gonna be good. If you don’t like it, we’ll switch, I’ll ride you. All you have to do is lie back and relax, and let me know if, if you like it.”

 

    “I’ll let you know. As long as I’m with you.” He strokes Freddie’s face. “As long as I’m with you. I love you.”

 

    “Fuck, I love you.” Freddie turns to kiss the heel of his hand. “Yeah, I do. If it was up to me, fuck, if I could… we’d keep on going. We’d never go back. I’d take you so far away, we’d never-- No one could ever touch you, you’d be free, we’d be safe…”

 

    It’s too much to think about, but this time, he doesn’t stop him. Just for one night, he could pretend it’s possible to just keep on going.

 

    He had thought it might be difficult or awkward, the first time, the prep. Well, it’s awkward, a little. His arousal wanes a little as Freddie talks him gently through it, but it’s quicker and easier than he’d anticipated, and then it goes from weird to good, while Freddie kisses his knee and promises to take care of him.

 

    Freddie kisses the same spot again, laughs nervously against him as he tries to line himself up, and Crosby shifts to wrap his legs around Freddie’s waist, though he doesn’t pull him in until he’s ready, until he is in, and then…

 

    And then, everything is perfect. The nervous laughter is perfect and the way Freddie’s eyes sparkle when they meet his, and the gentle rocking of his hips.

 

    “Freddie… Freddie…” He reaches up, taking his face in both hands. Seeking out his eyes again and drinking in the look of focus. Focus on him, on taking care of him, and has anyone? Not like this, anyway. It’s been so long since anyone’s taken real care of him…

 

    Someone says ‘I love you' again. They both do. There are tears in his eyes, and neither of them can keep from saying it, locked together, finding a rhythm that works. Freddie’s hand around him, moving in time, and Freddie finishes first, but that hand has Crosby following close behind.

 

    And they both clean up a little, with handfuls of wadded tissue. They both take that all important moment to regain a little post-orgasm equilibrium, but then Freddie is in his arms once more, the moment he’s ready to welcome the contact, and he holds him tight and he can’t hold back. Tears, words, it all spills out between them until exhaustion takes them.

 

    He feels like shit in the morning, but at least Freddie is in his arms.

 

    No. Freddie shouldn’t be in his arms. Not like this. Not naked and warm and… Not like this.

 

    “Freddie…” He whispers.

 

    “Crosby…” Freddie lifts his head. Awake. How long has he been awake? He doesn’t look like he’s slept well. He looks about how Crosby feels…

 

    “Last night…”

 

    “I know. We shouldn’t have.”

 

    “I-- I don’t _regret_ it. But we… But it makes it harder, that’s all. And I can’t be the reason something happens to you.” He strokes his cheek. “I meant everything I said. And… everything we did. I just…”

 

    “Yeah. And I meant it. But I get it. And… I mean it’s not like I want something to happen to me, I just… Last night was…” He shakes his head, looking away. “No one’s ever looked at me like you. Or wanted the things you want… or said the things you said.”

 

    “I’m sorry.”

 

    “No. I mean… I’m glad I got to hear it once. I’m glad we had this. Aren’t you?”

 

    Crosby nods, taking his hand. “I’d rather hurt knowing what I’m missing than never… never have you. I just… The whole situation fucking sucks, that’s all. I knew we couldn’t keep doing it but I never knew just waking up would feel like this…”

 

    Freddie leans up and kisses his cheek.

 

    They rise, and dress, the morning silent. Freddie takes them back to the marina, and even with nothing they can really say, the idea of parting is a stone in the pit of Crosby’s stomach.

 

    He takes his hoodie off, as Freddie escorts him out to go, draping it over his shoulders.

 

    “Keep it.” He bites his lip. “It gets cold out on the ocean sometimes.”

 

    “What, like-- for reals, just… keep it?”

 

    “Yeah. I can always get another. But I want you to have it.”

 

    He doesn’t have to ask if Freddie likes it, Freddie looks… Fuck, but he could kiss him, with a look like that.

 

    Instead, he leaves.


	32. Tell Me Everything'll Be All Right

93- Crosby

 

    He doesn’t realize he has a hickey until he gets back to the apartment and gets a thumbs up from Johnny’s boyfriend. Who would have been a convenient excuse to stay with Freddie, if he’d needed an excuse…

 

    It’s the hickey that decides him. He gathers up the laundry he’d put off doing and goes back up to the house.

 

    “Dad, I’m home!” He hollers, but he doesn’t bother checking for him, he goes through the kitchen to get to the laundry room, to get his load going.

 

    When he comes out to the living room, though, his dad is there. He looks…

 

    He looks like he used to. Not when Crosby was a kid, maybe, but like none of the past year had happened. Like he’s unreservedly happy, if not _too_ happy, to see Crosby at home over the weekend.

 

    “Hey, kiddo. To what do I owe the, uh, the surprise?”

 

    “Laundry.”

 

    “You want to stick around a while? I wouldn’t mind the company. I’ve been going over numbers today, about time I took a break.”

 

    “Sure. Yeah.”

 

    “Anything special you want to do?” He asks, then pauses, head tilting as he catches sight of the hickey. “You have a good night last night?”

 

    “Oh. Yeah.” Crosby grins a little. “Freddie. We, uh… I mean, it was nothing big, just like… dinner. Um. Spent the night at his place.”

 

    “Good, good. That’s good. You remember what I said about, about being, uh, safe?”

 

    He turns away, face heating. “We’re fine.”

 

    “ _Crosby_. Your health isn’t a joke.”

 

    He frowns and shrugs, two thoughts flashing through his head-- one, that Freddie’s health had been, that his dad hadn’t cared anything about pushing him to the brink, and for what? And two, treacherously, that it feels good to be fretted over again. Or it would, if the subject wasn’t his sex life...

 

     “Dad, it’s _fine_.” He presses.

 

    “Do I need to take you to get tested?”

 

    “Dad. _No_. I’m-- we’re safe. It’s fine, really. We’re not, like… it’s fine.”

 

    “He a good kid? He got a good future?”

 

    “He’s incredible.” Crosby says, a little too much fire spilling out into it. “Yeah. He-- he’s going to be somebody-- he’s going to be the best there is. I-- I just-- He works hard. Studying and shit. And he’s really going to be somebody.”

 

    His dad drops down onto one end of the sofa, patting the center seat. “Good, good. That’s what you need, a smart kid with a little ambition. A hard worker, that’s… that’s good.”

 

    Crosby sits, and there’s still a little wariness, but his dad reaches up to squeeze his shoulder, before his hand moves up to the side of his neck, warm and reassuring.

 

    “Yeah. Well. I think he’s good for me.”

 

    “That’s good. He’s, what, you said he’s a film student?”

 

    “Yeah.”

 

    “Good… Sounds safe. Sounds good. You have to think about that, Cros. Men in our line of work, we’re born to a certain amount of danger. The right man will accept that, it’s part and parcel of the whole… There’s no getting away from some things. But you have to choose the right one. You don’t want a boy who brings his own danger… you don’t want a boy who gets into trouble. You don’t need that… not when there are plenty of boys who would be happy to stay safe. Have a separate career or just stay home… You need a boy with a good head on his shoulders. One who’ll know how to stay safe, if he decides he’s in it for the long haul with you.”

 

    He gives Crosby a quick little squeeze, before his hand drops away.

 

    “He’s all I want. I don’t… I don’t know what the future holds, but…” He looks away again, shrugging. “I just want to know him forever. I guess that’s soft, or… whatever.”

 

    “It’s human. You’re all right, kiddo. We all feel… we all feel a little soft when we’re young. That’s the time for it. You make smart choices and you can be soft, you just can’t be soft all the time, you can’t be soft with just anyone. You learn what kind of distance you need, with friends… even the friends you’ve known for years, you learn what kind of distance to keep. Some friends it’s just not smart to keep close-- not so close you care too much. But a partner, a partner’s good. If you can trust him, if you can keep him safe, that’s… that’s fine. Hey… how about we drive down to the shooting range?”

 

    “I’ve got to switch my laundry over when it finishes… um, after that?”

 

    His dad nods. “After that. I’ll go wrap up work now, then, and we’ll hit the road once your stuff’s in the dryer.”

 

\---

 

94- Manfred

 

    _You ok?_

 

    He grabs for his phone, pulling it into the cocoon he’s made for himself in his bed. Back out on the open ocean, if not very far out. Far enough that no one can reach him, that’s all that matters. Wearing Crosby’s hoodie, or he guesses it’s his hoodie now, and he’d been moping in bed a little, but Crosby’s text makes him smile a little in spite of himself.

 

    _yeah i’m fine_

_just miss u_

 

_I miss you._

 

_u thinking about me now?_ He grins, uncurling from the tight ball he’d been in, rolling onto his back.

 

_Usually am. What are you doing?_

 

_thinking about u literally nothing else what about u?_

_wearing ur hoodie and last night’s underwear in case u were wondering_

 

Maybe that’s too much, but… well, last night is still affecting him. He feels so much, he needs so much…

 

    _I’m at home doing laundry_

_You marked me up last night._

 

_ooh did we piss off daddy?_

 

_No and we’re not going to._

_I mean he saw it._

_He’s on my case about safe sex and it’s driving me nuts but he’s being nice._

 

_oh shit really?_

 

_I mean we’ve literally never used a condom but like I’m clean. Or do you mean the nice thing? I think really, yeah._

 

_ur the only person I haven’t used condoms w since like my first is that ok? I’ve been tested since then do u want me to again?_ He frowns, turning back onto his side. Of course there’s the matter of who his first was, but… well, they’ve been using condoms. Most of the time the entire time he’s been… available, he guesses. Not the very first time, but he’d said he’d never, then, and since then just once or twice when he’d talked him into an unplanned-for blowjob in some other part of the house, without condoms readily on hand.

 

    Not once without, since the first time after the Incident. And never with casual hookups. He does know a couple things about self-preservation.

 

    _Yeah that’s okay. Just do it when you do it I guess, I’m not worried._

_You know what he said?_

 

_what?_

 

_He said you sounded like a good match for me. Ambitious. Smart._

 

_u told him i was smart?_

 

_I might have told him a lot about you._

_Fuck I wish we could just be together and normal. It can’t be like this after I graduate, you know?_

 

    And he does know. It can’t even be like this now, they both know that, but once Crosby is just working for his dad? He won’t be living on his own, he won’t be free to sneak away and meet up, all his time is going to belong to the Wolf King, and when he is free to do things on his own, he still won’t be free for him. For someone who grew up in this world, Crosby still has so much naivete to lose… and he’s going to lose it, once he’s working for his dad.

 

\---

 

95- The Wolf King

 

    Crosby is a welcome distraction. When the pain lingers on and the idea of seeking out other company doesn’t sit right, it’s just good to have him home.

 

    School’s important, but home is where Crosby belongs. To be there when he’s needed, to be… to be what’s needed of him.

 

    He is trying… he’s not worrying about all of the right things, no, he’s still twenty-two and he thinks he’ll live forever. But he’s starting to worry about the right things. He’s starting to think the way he needs to.

 

    There’s so much he needs to understand, and too much of that can’t be taught, but he’s learning the things that can be.

 

    Whether or not this Freddie boy is going to be serious in the real long term, Crosby feels seriously about him now, and that’s a relief after the past winter break, even if only time can tell whether he’s a safe target for any soft feelings. But he’s safer than he could be. He means Crosby’s heart is engaged, that Acapulco is… well, whatever he is, he’s not all-consuming, not truly important. But he wouldn’t encourage Crosby to chase another bad bet just to keep him away from Acapulco, it’s not Acapulco he cares about.

 

    He doesn’t think about the Acapulco problem while they shoot. He thinks about the fact that Tommy would have been proud of Crosby’s skill and his hard work. He has no idea how to express that. Crosby was so young, how well does he even remember him? What weight would he assign to that pride? They don’t talk about him, he hasn’t mentioned Tommy or spoken his name to anyone in so long, how would he go about trying to say he would have been proud, let alone why Crosby should care?

 

    They were going to tell him. A few years and they’d tell him, they had discussed it. Orian had said when Crosby was thirteen. He’d be old enough then-- if he didn’t ask before then, or walk in on a kiss. But there had been no point in explaining, with Tommy gone.

 

    “Making your old man proud there.” He says instead, and it’s not untrue, even if it’s not exactly what he wants to say. He tugs Crosby in close with a hand around the side of his neck, the careful sort of guidance a recently-wayward lamb needs, that bit of attention. “You feel good about today’s performance, or should we go another round?”

 

    There’s a wide-eyed sort of look in response, from a boy still uncomfortable with making decisions. He’d need to learn to make decisions, but there’s still time… there’s time for that.

 

    “I could go another round, sure.” He nods.

 

    He’s not the adoring Crosby he had been before this past winter break, before his uncharacteristic display of defiance… oh, there are glimpses. When he’s praised, when he’s consulted, when he’s flattered… He just wants that adoring Crosby back, today of all days. He needs to be loved unconditionally, to have his own ego flattered… he needs to be the focus of someone’s attention. It wouldn’t do to take a lover for the purpose, not so soon. Not the very next day, after a night that should have been theirs.

 

    “You free for dinner?” He asks, when Crosby handles that last round like a pro. “Catch up with your old man? Fill me in on how school’s going?”

 

    And there’s another flicker. It’s not what he wants, but it’s enough. When it comes with an eager enough acceptance… it’s enough.


	33. Blinded by Thirst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry about the delay, especially as this chapter is such a short one-- I've had a hectic week! Bigger things coming.

96- Crosby

 

    The texts remain flirtatious. They meet one last time, in public, and agree they won’t meet up anymore. At the mall if they absolutely have to see each other for something, but never the yacht, not again.

 

    Really, just seeing each other again is so much, too much. The way Freddie’s eyes fill up with things he doesn’t show the rest of the world, when they duck into an empty corner of the food court to say goodbye.

 

    “I might see you… I might come home for spring break this year. I don’t know.” He says. “I haven’t made plans. I’ll probably just hang out at home a lot. I guess I’ll text you when I know. I’ve got the art show first.”

 

    “I’m sorry I can’t go to your big opening.”

 

    “Don’t-- don’t be. I mean… we can’t do that kind of stuff for each other. I mean, Freddie, it’s hard enough just…”

 

    “You said you didn’t care if we made it harder.”

 

    “I didn’t. But I should have. You’re the one who’ll get hurt if we’re not careful in front of him. If I can’t be careful, because of how you make me feel, and-- I can’t let you pay for my being an idiot. And I am, I am with you, I’m so-- I’m so fucking stupid for you, okay?”

 

    “I’m so fucking stupid for you, too.” Freddie sighs. He touches Crosby’s hand, brief. It sounds a little bit too much like ‘I love you’, but maybe he had started that. Maybe anything would, now that they’ve said it once. Now that they’ve whispered it to each other over and over that night…

 

    “When we do see each other again… Just-- If you can’t forget, pretend. And I’ll pretend.” He says, as if they haven’t always pretended. “Freddie… Until then, okay? Just… stay safe. Sober?”

 

    “Yeah. I will. And-- I mean, you, you take care.”

 

    “You can still text, like we have been. I mean… my dad’s still going to read my phone, he thinks I don’t know and that’s… that’s fine now. Like, it’s still good if he thinks-- if he thinks there’s someone.”

 

    “Can I text you real shit about feelings?”

 

    Crosby nods. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

 

    It’s going to hurt. But everything’s going to hurt. They could have just this. At least he’ll know when Freddie is safe.

 

\---

 

97- Manfred

 

    When he finally makes it to the gallery, there’s a sold sticker there at the corner of Crosby’s drawing.

 

    The paper is tan, the half-dressed central figure penciled in exquisite detail is twisted in agony or ecstasy. Is it him, like the others? The face isn’t visible. There’s a small spray of blood to one side of the bent-back head, in red ink or paint, and a fine spatter of white around the other side, and that’s when he realizes it is him, realizes the morning Crosby has been laboring over bringing to life this time.

 

    Sold. They weren’t supposed to sell it, not to someone else! This was their pain, it wasn’t allowed to go to someone else!

 

    “Excuse me, is there a mistake here?” He demands, of the man left in charge. “I left instructions at the last show, when Crosby Franklin shows a piece here, I’m to be called, and I’m to be called so I can fuckin’ buy it. I have the two, the other two pieces in his series, and-- and you sold this one to someone else?”

 

    The man consults a clipboard, and then goes to consult his computer.

 

    “I’m sorry, sir, but Mister Franklin insisted. After the show, this one goes to him.”

 

    Crosby… well that was all right, then, Crosby… Crosby could keep it. Could say, like the time before, that he wouldn’t want him to see it, that he thought he wouldn’t like it, and Manfred can understand why. He can understand why.

 

    It’s hard to look at. He doesn’t remember much of that morning, from just before Crosby came into the poolhouse through to maybe the fifth time he woke up under his watchful eye. What he does remember, he’d rather not, except for the parts where he had been in Crosby’s arms, in his bed, surrounded by the smell of him all warm and sleepy… love.

 

    And this is part of it, like the others before it, love. He can understand Crosby wanting to reserve it, wanting to protect him from it even. Wanting to keep this thing that’s theirs for himself.

 

\---

 

98- The Wolf King

 

    There’s something brittle in things still, with Crosby. All those old moments of anger, they make sense after the fight over Acapulco… and yet there are moments where he still needs his old man, too. He’d come around, after Valentine’s day. A little, on that visit, cautious but…

 

    He doesn’t know what he’d done so right that he’d broken through the walls that had been up since winter break… he hadn’t paid attention. They went to the gun range, they got milkshakes, it wasn’t any different from usual, was it? But it had been different from all those times when the simmering anger wouldn’t evaporate, Crosby had been different. And the Wolf King had been distracted, too much so to be careful-- too much to notice where the difference lay. No way to recreate the difference as a purposeful tool.

 

    It takes more work to get flashes of that Crosby back. He puts the work in. Whatever hold Acapulco might still have, he needs his hold to be stronger. Whatever it is…

 

    Whatever it is, it’s there, and he had thought he was teaching his son a lesson, but it’s clear he’s only made it stronger. Oh, there’s the boyfriend at least, to keep it from becoming something more again-- there’s something very satisfying in the way Acapulco averts his eyes and pretends to be unaffected when he brings the boyfriend up, too, how poor a job he does of hiding the fact that he’s emotional about it. How he'll feign a casual follow up question with his voice nearly cracking with feeling. Well, the Wolf King can understand that, he supposes-- even Acapulco is allowed to be the master of his own pain, if he wants to twist the knife. At least he understands something about his place now. But it was clear when he finally went to one of Crosby’s gallery openings that there was a hold, and some of the hold on Crosby must have been his fault. He recognized what he was looking at in that drawing.

 

    There’s something satisfying as well, in buying it. He won’t be able to hang it until the gallery show ends, but he’s contemplating placement.

 

    Would it mean anything to Acapulco if he put it in the poolhouse? Perhaps not, the boy’s not canny, he wouldn’t know what he was looking at.

 

    Well, maybe he’ll ask the kiddo where to put it up, if it wouldn’t be too much. He can’t tip the balance too far all at once, he has to hold onto something, there’s always going to be another moment when Crosby needs managing. But he’d been surprised by the show of support at the gallery show. The hope is there.


End file.
